Inquiry
by harpomarx
Summary: When a panel is convened to review the facts of Gregory House's life, his fellows past and present, colleagues, patients and friends are called to testify. Possible character death.
1. Day 1, 9 am Thirteen

Inquiry

**Summary: **When a panel is convened to review the facts of Gregory House's life, his fellows (past and present), colleagues, patients and friends are called to testify. Possible character death.

_Six blind men came upon an elephant. "What is an elephant like?" they wondered, so each of them approached part of the elephant and touched it. The first blind man, who touched the elephant's leg, proclaimed, "An elephant is like a pillar." "No, it is like a rope," disagreed the second blind man, who had grabbed the elephant's tail. "You're both wrong. It is like a tree branch," said the third man, who touched the trunk, while the fourth blind man thought the ear felt like a hand fan. Blind man number five, who touched only the elephant's side, argued that it was like a wall, and number six insisted that the elephant's tusk was like a pipe. They began to argue, each insisting that the impression he had of the elephant described the entire beast. A passing wise man watched the scene with bemusement, finally taking pity on the arguing blind men, explaining to them that an elephant was all of those things... and more._

_-Ancient East Indian fable_

**Day One, 9 a.m. - Monday**

The atmosphere was somber, fluorescent lights casting a blue glow on the otherwise dark room, turning the faces of its inhabitants a sickly green. The stifling, humid New Jersey heat of August was only slightly modified by an air conditioner humming in the background.

Along one side of a long table sat three men and two women, papers, file folders stuffed to overflowing, notepads, pens and bottles of water placed next to each person. Opposite them, a lone chair was situated behind a smaller table, centered so that the person being questioned would sit directly across from the head of the panel, a stout, gray-haired man who sat at the middle of the long table. On the small table sat another bottle of cold water, condensation forming around its rim.

Diagonal to the long table was a second small table, upon which was placed a digital recorder operated by a heavyset, middle-aged female court stenographer wearing a slightly too tight moss green suit. At least, it appeared to be moss green under the fluorescent lighting. It might, in fact, have been pink.

Through the door came a slim, striking brunette, who walked slowly toward the panel and hesitantly seated herself on the lone chair. For the next couple of hours - in fact, for the next few days - most of the questions were asked by the gentleman appointed the head of the panel, although occasionally other panel members interjected if they had specific questions.

"State your name for the record."

"Dr. Remy Hadley."

"You were one of Dr. House's fellows, is that correct?"

"Yes, I was."

"Could you please describe what your fellowship consisted of?"

Thirteen found herself surprisingly nervous as she faced the panel, although she couldn't put her finger on exactly why. Perhaps it was because she was still debating about how forthcoming to be. Or perhaps because she was a little uncomfortable with the fairly recent emergence of more severe Huntington's symptoms.

On the surface, however, she seemed serene, appearing surprisingly at ease in the less-than-comfortable hard-backed chair, although a slight tremor of her hands became evident as she gestured while answering the questions put to her.

"Certainly. Whenever we got a new case, we would brainstorm possible diagnoses - what we called a DDX - and would treat according to what seemed to be the likeliest diagnosis. It was often a process - sometimes long, sometimes short - in which we would continue narrowing it down until we came up with the correct solution."

"What was Dr. House's role in all of this?"

"Dr. House would reject diagnoses that didn't match the symptoms, based on his extensive experience and knowledge, and would suggest possible solutions and treatment based on those symptoms. He rarely saw patients, because he felt that direct interaction with them might interfere with his ability to look at the situation objectively."

"Was there anyone on the team who most often came up with the correct diagnosis?"

"Absolutely. Dr. House himself usually solved the case. Occasionally, one of the rest of us - there were usually between three and five of us on the team - would come up with the solution, but usually it was Dr. House."

"I understand that Dr. House had an unusually high success rate. Is that correct?"

"Yes. During my tenure with him, Dr. House and his team correctly solved about 95 percent of the cases he took on."

"As we understand it, Dr. House was considered the last resort for many of these patients."

"Yes. Usually, our cases were ones that other doctors had given up on."

"So this success rate was especially impressive?"

"Yes. The Diagnostics Department at PPTH was the first of its kind in the world, and Dr. House's reputation was what made it so successful."

"As we understand it, part of that reputation came from what one might call his prickly personality. We understand that Dr. House could be obnoxious and that many people disliked him."

"Certainly, he could be obnoxious, and he was definitely disliked by some people - even by some who admired him and occasionally by those who genuinely liked him."

"Was this your experience with him? How would you describe him as a person?"

Thirteen pondered a moment before responding. "Well, he was sometimes abrasive, sarcastic, manipulative and, occasionally, downright mean. But I somehow felt that beneath the façade was a complicated, lonely man who was in a lot of pain, both physical and emotional."

"How would you describe Dr. House's managerial and teaching style?"

She looked pensive again. "I guess I would say that it was unorthodox, but effective. He encouraged us to - well, perhaps encouraged is too soft a word - he _insisted _that we look at each case objectively, stand up for what we believed in and put the patient's well-being ahead of everything else, including our personal lives. Because of working with him, I am definitely a better doctor and I'm almost certainly a stronger person."

"Would you say that Dr. House was an ethical man?"

"Depends on your definition of ethics. He would occasionally do things, or ask that we do things, that others in the medical profession might consider questionable, but it was in the service of finding the right answer and saving the patient's life. I would say that, in the course of his career, Dr. House developed his own standards and ethical beliefs and he held to those very dearly."

"We understand that Dr. House spent a lot of his time playing video games, avoiding clinic duty, watching television, and even playing pranks and mind games on other doctors. Would that be a fair assessment, and if so, do you have anything to say about that behavior?"

"Yes, that is fair, and I've actually given a lot of thought to this. I do believe that there are three reasons behind his behavior. First, as those who have studied creativity have noted in the literature, stepping away from a problem to do something mundane, such as watching a soap opera or playing a game, actually frees the brain to work subconsciously on the creative problem, leading to better solutions."

"You believe that finding the answer to these medical problems is primarily a creative endeavor?"

"Yes, I do. Of course, medical knowledge is involved, but the process of finding out what was causing an unusual set of symptoms is definitely creative."

"What do you believe the second reason would be?"

"I believe that, because of his superior intellect, Dr. House became bored easily, and those seemingly extracurricular activities actually kept him grounded. I'm not sure that most people saw it that way, however. I think many people around the hospital thought he was just lazy, but I would have to disagree."

"Why is that?"

"Because, when he thought no one was paying attention, Dr. House was constantly keeping up on the latest medical research, reading international and domestic medical journals published in a variety of languages and tracking unusual cases on the Internet. Of course, if questioned about it, he always claimed to be viewing porn. Sometimes, he actually was."

A low chuckle escaped the 40-ish, gray-haired woman on the far left of the panel. Thirteen's eyes flickered momentarily in her direction before returning to the face of the panel's chair.

"What would the third reason be?"

"Dr. House was in constant, intractable pain from a leg injury. Again, if you read the literature on the subject, chronic pain sufferers find that distractions enable them to function better."

"Talk to us about Dr. House's pain."

"What would you like to know?"

"How did it begin?"

"I wasn't around when it happened, so I only know about it second hand. You'd do better to talk to someone who was actually present."

"Who would that be?"

"Dr. Wilson, although I believe he was on his second honeymoon at the time, Dr. House's then-girlfriend, whom I never met, and, of course, Dr. Cuddy, who was the physician in charge of his case."

"Thanks, Dr. Hadley. We will follow up with them."

"Is there anything you would like to say about Dr. House's pain?"

"Hmmm… I'm sure you already know that he self-medicated with Vicodin… except for a couple of years after he was hospitalized at Mayfield Psychiatric. Then he was clean, although his pain levels - whether on Vicodin or not - were pretty extreme. We often saw him subconsciously rubbing his thigh, and sometimes he just had to get up and walk around to keep the pain at bay."

"Anything else?"

"Yes. I believe he got pretty desperate about the pain at times, and occasionally tried radical approaches to eliminate it."

"Could you give us an example of one of these radical approaches?"

"Well, during my tenure with him, probably the most radical - actually the two most radical - were when he tried quitting Vicodin and switching to methadone… and, of course, when he attempted self-surgery."

"Tell us about the methadone. I understand there have been excellent results with some pain patients."

"Dr. House didn't tell any of us that he had quit taking Vicodin or that he was on the methadone. The only reason we found out about it at all was that he stopped breathing one day in the office. Initially, the doctors present thought he was just asleep."

"Who was present at that time?"

"Drs. Wilson, Cuddy, Foreman and Kutner. I came into the office with some test results right after they resuscitated him."

"Did he find that the methadone helped him with his pain?"

"Apparently, it completely eliminated his pain. Immediately before we discovered what was going on, his limp had become less severe - turns out he was faking how bad the limp was altogether for a few days - and his mood brightened considerably. For a day or so, after we learned about the methadone, he didn't need to use his cane at all."

"You say he faked his limp. Do you have an explanation for that?"

"If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that he was afraid the methadone wasn't going to work for him, and didn't want a lot of unnecessary questions about it until he was convinced that it was going to become a permanent treatment for him. Dr. House was a very private person."

"While he was on methadone, did he continue using Vicodin?"

"There is no way, medically, that he could have continued using Vicodin while he was also taking methadone. His transition off of Vicodin must have been pretty easy, because none of us noticed anything until he stopped breathing because of the methadone, so it certainly made me doubt whether he had actually been addicted, as some people have insisted."

"Was there a reason he didn't stay on the methadone?"

"I don't really know all the details… although the word around the department was that Dr. Cuddy insisted on controlling his methadone intake, which annoyed him to the point that he actually quit briefly."

"Was there a reason why Dr. Cuddy would have interfered with his medical treatment, which had been prescribed for him, as we understand it, by a doctor outside of Princeton-Plainsboro?"

"I wouldn't know about that. None of us knew who was prescribing for him. And I can't speak for Dr. Cuddy, although I will say that it seemed as if Dr. Cuddy and Dr. Wilson often interfered with Dr. House, both medically and personally."

"But then he came back to work. Do you know why he returned, after he felt strongly enough to resign his post?"

"Not really. Just that he did."

"What happened with the methadone?"

"He felt that its side effects - not the respiratory problems, but a general mental haziness - compromised his ability to do his job. So he went back on the Vicodin."

"Interesting. So would you say that he thought he functioned better in pain and on Vicodin than without pain but on methadone."

"Apparently so."

"Do you think that his ability to think clearly was more important to him than the elimination of his pain?"

"That would be my take on it. I think, though, that if he could have eliminated his pain _and _continued to work effectively, he would certainly have done it. I suspect that Dr. Wilson might disagree with that assessment."

"Why is that?"

"He seemed to believe that Dr. House preferred being in pain. Within my hearing, he often accused Dr. House of enjoying his misery."

"You disagree."

"Yes. I disagree."

"It sounds as if you liked Dr. House, despite his abrasive nature."

"Sometimes I did."

"Why would that be? Why did you like him?"

"First of all, it was a privilege to work with a true medical genius like him. For me, that made up for a lot. Second, well, I owe him. Although he flaunted his flaws, he tended to hide his good deeds… and he did me a several good deeds during the time I knew him."

"Could you elaborate?"

Thirteen hesitated. Here it was. How much should she tell? Should she mention the way she had drugged House and then conducted several biopsies on him without his permission… or how he never seemed to hold that ethical lapse against her? Should she talk about how he kept her on, even after she had killed both Stark and his dog through her own negligence? She rejected those options, even though they did give her a greater appreciation, both for House's personality and for his extreme loyalty to those who worked for him.

"I-I, uh, well, I guess it's no secret that I have Huntington's Chorea. It was Dr. House who made me confront the likelihood that I had inherited it from my mother, and got me to face up to the consequences. When I didn't handle the prognosis well, he - in his own unique way - got me to reset my priorities. I probably wouldn't be alive today if he hadn't intervened."

"You said that he did you several good deeds. Were there any others?"

She considered mentioning how House had offered to euthanize her when the time came, but decided to avoid that piece of information if they would allow her to. "The other one is very personal, and I'd prefer to leave it that way." Thirteen remembered clearly the moment that House had turned to her in his car - the same car he later drove through Cuddy's dining room - and offered to kill her if her Huntington's situation worsened to the point where she just wanted out.

"Fine. Moving on. You also mentioned self-surgery. This sounds pretty radical."

"Dr. House was often pretty radical."

"Do you know the details of what happened when he performed surgery on himself?"

"Not all of them. All I know - and again, this is mostly through the grapevine - is that he had been experimenting with an untested drug that was supposed to re-grow damaged muscle. Instead, it caused tumors to grow in his injured thigh. As with the methadone, he chose to keep this information to himself. I guess he was embarrassed to admit that he had done something so extreme, so he tried to excise the tumors himself. At home, alone. In his bathtub."

Thirteen noticed that a couple of the panel members seemed startled by this information, even though it was obvious from their questions that they had already done their homework before the inquiry began.

"That _is _extreme, although it's not unheard of for physicians to occasionally attempt self-surgery. Did the surgery work? Did he remove the tumors?"

"As I understand it, he got a couple of them, but another surgeon at the hospital removed the others in his leg. But following what amounted to three surgeries - his own self-surgery and the follow-up surgery performed by Dr. Hourani, plus another when he developed complications - Dr. House checked himself out against medical advice - AMA - after a couple of days. I don't think Dr. House really trusted that the hospital would do right by him… not surprising, given his past experiences… which explains why he did his own surgery in the first place, and why he refused to recuperate at PPTH."

"Were there any other side effects of the untested drug?"

"I don't know, but I've always wondered whether there might have been additional tumors, other than the ones in his leg." The unsettling thought had circled around in her head, both at the time and then later on, as she tried to fit together the puzzle pieces of what had happened immediately thereafter.

"What makes you think that?"

"Nothing specific, but it was around this time that his emotional state became unstable… this was shortly before he drove his car into Dr. Cuddy's house. It was so out of character for him to be violent in that way… I couldn't help but wonder if there might have been additional tumors growing that affected him somehow. Or some other physical problem that had gone undiagnosed."

"But you never had the opportunity to diagnose him?"

"No, we did not. In fact, we never even discussed it as a group." This was something that had weighed on her; should they have addressed the issues going on? Should they have tried to apply his own methods to their boss?

"Were there any physical after-effects of the drug or the self-surgery?"

"He never said, of course, but I believe his pain levels increased. The area was so sensitive to begin with that I can't help but believe the tumors and the three surgeries must have aggravated what was already an incredibly painful area."

"Thank you, Dr. Hadley. Why don't we take a brief break, and we'll finish up our remaining few questions at 11 a.m.?"

Thirteen rose gingerly from the uncomfortable hard chair, standing a moment before she began to walk, trying to make it appear as if she was merely stretching out her limbs… when actually, she was testing herself to make sure she was able to move without losing her balance. As gracefully as she could, she made her way out the door, down the hall and into the ladies' room, where she splashed cold water on her face, and stretched a bit more.

The tremors had gotten noticeably worse lately, and she knew pretty soon things would get so bad that anyone who saw her would know something was wrong.


	2. Day 1, 11 am Thirteen 2

**Day One, 11 a.m.**

Thirteen settled herself back on the hard, wooden chair. She drew a deep breath, and waited for the next question.

"You were part of his team around the time Dr. House went to Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital. Did you notice any changes in his personality beforehand?"

"I wish I could say that I had, but I did not." How could all of them have missed the signs of his impending mental breakdown, she wondered? It was almost as bad as when they'd missed the signs before Kutner's suicide. Were they so used to House's eccentricities that they sloughed it off, or was he just that good at hiding things? Or were they not as observant as the ought to be. She'd gone over it in her head hundreds of times since.

"Did you notice any changes in Dr. House after he returned from Mayfield?"

"Yes. He seemed more at ease with himself, and for a while, he was less sarcastic… less sharp-tongued with us."

"Were the rest of his staff and colleagues aware of these positive changes?"

"Of course, I can't speak for them, but certainly neither Dr. Cuddy nor Dr. Wilson appeared to be giving him any kind of encouragement or support. They seemed more concerned over whether he was 'using' again - as they called it."

"Could you explain what you mean?"

Thirteen took a deep breath. Oh, well. In for a penny, in for a pound. At this point, she had nothing to lose by revealing the truth about her colleagues. "Well, Dr. House had been taking Vicodin for a reason. He was in excruciating pain all the time. Although he clearly had problems with the drug, he also needed some kind of pain relief. It almost seemed as if Drs. Cuddy and Wilson were more concerned with his drug use than with the reason he took the drugs in the first place. The studies have shown that people in pain react differently to the effects of painkillers than people who are not, and I don't think that was taken into account."

"Now, were you working for Dr. House when he was involved in a serious bus crash in the spring of 2008?"

"Yes."

"Could you give us a brief summary of what happened?"

"In the crash, Dr. House suffered a severe head injury, with resultant concussion and retrograde amnesia. An X-ray revealed a skull fracture, which widened significantly over the next few days."

"How was this injury treated?"

"In my opinion, not well. Dr. House believed that he had forgotten some crucial piece of evidence that might be used to save a patient's life. As a result, he continued to work as he attempted to discover the answer."

"How did others at the hospital react to this injured patient's insistence on working?"

"For the most part, they encouraged it, because Dr. House was so adamant that a patient's life was at stake. And, to be fair, he did discover a serious ailment affecting the driver of the bus, although it hadn't caused the crash."

"What exactly did Dr. House do in order to access his missing memories?"

"Initially, Dr. Chase hypnotized him, which was fairly benign. Later on, Dr. House inhaled aromas from the bus passenger's clothing, believing that the sense of smell might trigger his memories - which it did - and eventually used a sensory deprivation tank."

"What was your role in all of this?"

"Against my better judgment, I was the one who sealed him in the tank. I did argue with him about it at the time, but Dr. House, even impaired, could be quite determined... and he was, after all, my boss."

"Anything else?"

"Yes. He recreated the placement of passengers on the bus and took the Alzheimer's drug physostigmine to enhance his memories, which triggered a myocardial infarction in the process."

"No one at the hospital overruled him or insisted that he rest?"

"Yes, although not very forcefully. At one point, Dr. Cuddy sent him home with a nurse in attendance, but when the situation grew more dire, she called him back to the hospital and encouraged him to keep working."

"Dire? How?"

"First, there was the status of the bus driver - whose condition had worsened. Then the recreation of the bus passenger placement, Dr. House's use of physostigmine and his heart attack, which led him to realize that the person he had been really trying to remember was his best friend - Dr. Wilson's - girlfriend, Dr. Amber Volakis. At that point, he refused to rest, pushing himself to find a cure for her."

"Was he successful?"

"Yes and no. Yes, he did ultimately discover what was causing her symptoms, but no, he was unable to save her life."

"This was all after suffering a skull fracture, a concussion, retrograde amnesia and a heart attack?"

"Yes, it was."

"I would have to say that I find that kind of dedication to be admirable. I understand that, despite his quite serious injuries, he agreed when Dr. Wilson asked him to undergo a deep brain stimulation. Is that correct?"

"Yes, it is." And what a stupid idea that was. She still couldn't believe House had agreed to it.

"Had Dr. House had any treatment for his skull fracture up to this point?"

"Not much that I'm aware of. He had been encouraged to rest, which, as I mentioned, he had mostly refused to do and no one really enforced, and he had been sutured when he was first brought into the ER."

"Let me get this straight. Dr. House was seriously injured in a traumatic accident, which eventually caused the death of someone he knew..."

Thirteen interjected. "She had been one of his fellows until recently."

"Okay, then. One of his former fellows was injured and Dr. House not only refused treatment for his initial injuries, but he underwent a series of questionable acts to gain access to his missing memories, eventually allowing his best friend to convince him to attempt an extremely dangerous procedure, which could have been life-threatening for Dr. House, even if he had not already been injured."

"Yes, that is right."

"I have to ask: Why didn't anyone stop him?"

Yes, she thought, why didn't anyone stop him? Secretly, that sardonic part of Thirteen was pleased to hear the panel pick up just how ludicrous the whole thing had been. How could they have allowed him to continue under those circumstances… herself included? She bit her tongue to avoid giving away too much of her personal feelings about it. Drawing a deep breath, she replied, as calmly as she could, "As I said, Dr. House could be very stubborn. In addition, once Dr. House remembered that our former colleague, Dr. Volakis, was involved, Dr. Wilson became less concerned about Dr. House's injuries and much more concerned about finding a way to save Dr. Volakis."

"And yet, we are talking about a man who had suffered a severe brain injury and allowed it to be aggravated by avoiding proper treatment and undergoing questionable procedures. At what point does he stop being a doctor - and your boss - and start being a patient?"

Thirteen shifted uncomfortably in her chair, the tremor in her hands growing more pronounced. Oh, what the hell.

"That _is _the question, isn't it? Only Dr. Wilson and Dr. Cuddy could have exerted enough pressure on Dr. House to ensure that he was treated as a patient and not a doctor..." Her sentence dangled enticingly, but she refused to complete the thought, which was that she felt that neither of those doctors had done what was medically appropriate under the circumstances.

"What was Dr. Cuddy's role in all of this?"

"I don't believe she was aware of the deep brain stimulation at the time. Other than that, she mostly allowed Dr. House to do as he saw fit."

"Did you agree with her approach to his treatment?"

"I would prefer not to answer that question."

"Understandable. Let me state it another way. If this had been any other patient, what would the course of treatment have been?"

"We would have admitted him immediately, done a head CT and an MRI, kept him still and under observation, performed ongoing mental status tests, checked him regularly for brain swelling and bleeds, possibly drained any fluid from the brain, if necessary, and perhaps even performed brain surgery if the situation worsened. We would have refused to allow him to function in his professional capacity until he had been cleared for work by a neurologist... a process that can sometimes take days, weeks or even months after an injury of that kind."

"Did he have any other symptoms that you are aware of?"

"He certainly did. He suffered violent headaches, which he attempted to hide from us, his emotions were volatile - not unusual in head injury patients, but quite unusual for Dr. House - vomiting, bleeding from his right ear, and after the deep brain stimulation, several grand mal seizures. And, of course, following the DBS, he was briefly in a coma."

"Were you present for the DBS?"

"No. I refused to be involved."

"Thank you, Dr. Hadley. Is there anything else you'd like to add?"

"No, there isn't."

"We retain the right to call you back if we have further questions. Lunch break."

Once again, she got up slowly, stretched… and left the room.


	3. Day 1, 130 pm Stacy

**Day One, 1:30 p.m.**

When Stacy entered the panel chambers, she took a deep breath to calm herself. Even after all these years, the end of her relationship with Greg still pained her. A tall, elegant woman, she looked the thorough professional.

"State your name for the record."

"Stacy Lockhart Warner."

"What is your profession?"

"Attorney."

"Thank you, Ms. Warner. We'll try to keep this brief, as we are sure that your time is valuable."

"I appreciate that."

"Please describe your relationship with Dr. House."

"We were a couple for five years."

"Did you live together?"

"Yes, at 221b Baker Street in Princeton."

"Tell us about Dr. House's leg injury."

"He was playing golf with a couple of other doctors when he felt an excruciating pain in his right thigh. When he went to the Emergency Room, he was told it was muscle strain."

"But it wasn't muscle strain, was it?"

"No, it wasn't. He went back to the hospital the next day, but the doctor who examined him at that point believed he was exhibiting drug-seeking behavior."

"Was he, in fact, seeking drugs?"

"No. The pain was horrible. He was seeking relief."

"Had he been using drugs recreationally before then?"

"Not much. An occasional joint."

"But no painkillers or hallucinogenics?"

"Not that I'm aware of… and we were together most of the time."

"Were you present with him these two times at the hospital?"

"No. I had been working the day it all started, and the next day, he chose to come to the hospital by himself."

"So there was no one there to back up his story, to help convince the doctor on call that he wasn't merely seeking drugs."

"No, there wasn't. I really wish I had gone with him… but that's water under the bridge now."

"How did he get diagnosed?"

"After three days of unimaginable pain, he diagnosed it himself."

"We understand from his medical records that he asked for a bypass, which was very painful and put stress on his heart, so he asked to be put in a medically induced coma. Is that correct?"

"Yes, it is."

"Who was his treating physician at this time?"

"Dr. Lisa Cuddy."

"What treatments did she recommend?"

"She really wanted to amputate - I think she felt that was the only safe solution, because by this time, his life was in danger. But Greg refused to consider it."

"At what point was the debridement suggested, and who suggested it?"

"Dr. Cuddy suggested it."

"What was Dr. House's reaction to that idea?"

"I'm sorry to say he didn't know about it." God, Stacy wished she could go back to that specific moment in time and rethink her decisions, although she had sincerely believed she was making the right choice in order to save his life, even if it blew up her relationship.

"Why not?"

"Dr. Cuddy and I talked privately. I was Greg's power of attorney and medical proxy, so I approved the procedure while he was in the coma."

"Against his express wishes?"

"Yes." _Damn it, yes._

"I take it the debridement did not go well."

"That's an understatement. It left him in the worst pain you can imagine. I think he spent the first month afterward screaming in agony."

"What happened next?"

"When he woke up and found out what I had done, it was really the beginning of the end for us. He was so angry, and felt so betrayed by me - somewhat justifiably, I must add - that our relationship never really recovered. After a few months, I moved out."

"Sorry to hear that, Ms. Warner. I'm sure this is still difficult for you, but we have a few more questions."

"Certainly. Proceed."

"How would you compare his personality before and after the injury?"

"Wow. That's actually a tougher question than it sounds. I think he shut himself off from others a lot more. He had always been direct and fairly caustic, with little patience for people he thought were idiots, but afterward… well! He became bitter and brittle… sometimes nasty, even. I think that not only the pain, which certainly affected his behavior, but also my betrayal, caused him to hide his feelings deep inside, and he rarely - as I understand it, anyway - let them surface after then. He came to expect that people would betray him… and I'm sorry to say that they generally did."

"So you stayed in touch?"

"A little bit. He treated my husband a few years ago, and we resolved some of our past differences then."

"Would you say that Dr. House was a selfish man?"

"That's a very interesting question. I think - at least after his injury - he liked people to believe that he was. But truly selfish? No, I don't think so. I think he was - both before and after the injury - a remarkably devoted friend. He might have expressed it in unusual ways, but he would literally do anything in his power to ensure that someone he cared about was happy."

"At the time of the incident, you said he was playing golf with other doctors. Was he already heading up the Diagnostics Department at the time of the accident?"

"No. In fact, no such thing existed; the department - the first in the world - was created just for him after his injury."

"Really? How did that come about?"

"As I understand it, Dr. Cuddy created the job and the department for him. I was already gone by that time."

"Given the severity of his misdiagnosis and the agonizing pain he suffered, did he ever consider filing a lawsuit against the hospital, and against Dr. Cuddy, in particular?"

She grew quiet, looking down at her manicured nails. When she answered, she spoke softly. "I don't know that he did. I think he was so deep into his own pain and his sense of betrayal by me that he never seriously considered going after the hospital or Dr. Cuddy for negligence in his case. Plus, I think he knew I was just as much at fault for how it turned out, and he didn't want to jeopardize my career… no matter how angry and upset he might have been with me personally."

"Do you think the hospital or Dr. Cuddy might have been concerned that he might file a lawsuit and win?"

"Certainly if he had filed a suit, he had an excellent chance of winning… and I say that as an attorney. The first two doctors definitely mistreated him, and - in retrospect - I can see that Dr. Cuddy wasn't exactly ethical by suggesting the debridement to me without informing Greg that it was an option. He was a good enough physician - actually, one of the best - that he should have been given the opportunity to consider it and decide for himself."

"I know this is asking for your opinion, but… in your opinion, do you think the job creation was solely because of Dr. House's abilities, or was some of the motivation perhaps because PPTH and Dr. Cuddy were concerned about a lawsuit?"

"I can't say for sure, because, as I said, I had already left him by the time the department was created for him, but if I had to guess, I would say that it was equal measure. I don't think Dr. Cuddy would ever have created an untried and untested new kind of department for Greg, no matter how good he was, unless there was something else motivating her."

"One last question, Ms. Warner. Do you think there is any connection between the fact that it took three days to diagnose Dr. House's leg condition and his desire to become a diagnostician? Do you think his own experience might have been a motivating factor, and if so, how?"

For a moment, Stacy was thrown off balance. Although it should have been obvious, it had never actually occurred to her before that there might be a tie between what happened to Greg and the direction his career ultimately took.

"I… uh… well, yes. I have to confess I never considered this before. I guess I should have, but I didn't. I do remember Greg telling me - before everything went to hell - that he couldn't believe it had taken three days of unrelenting torture to find out what was going on with him… and that he'd had to do it himself."

She shook her head slightly, as if to clear away cobwebs. "I know it may not seem like it from how he often behaved over the years, especially later on, but underneath all that crap was a decent guy who cared, maybe even a little too much, about other people. So, although I wasn't there anymore when the department was created for him, I'd have to say that - knowing him as well as I did in those days - there must have been a really strong connection between the two. It _had_ to have been a motivating factor."

"I realize this is conjecture," said the chairman, "so I appreciate your response. Is there anything else along those lines you'd like to add?"

"Yes, I think so," replied Stacy thoughtfully. "I'm sure… I'm _really_ sure… he didn't want anyone else to go through what he'd suffered in those three days, and I'm prepared to bet that he would have been willing to devote his entire professional life to that end. I don't know if the idea of the department was originally Greg's or Lisa's, but it was the perfect fit, not just for Greg's talent and skills, but for where he was emotionally at that time."

"Thank you, Ms. Warner, for your honesty and willingness to clarify these issues for us. I think that's all we have for now. Stay available in case we have any follow-up questions. We'll take a brief break and reconvene at 3 o'clock."

Stacy rose gracefully and exited the room, happy to have her testimony behind her.


	4. Day 1, 3 pm Foreman

**Day One, 3 p.m.**

It was Foreman's turn. He entered the room confidently, back straight, head held high, his face impassive. The perfect administrator. Before he sat down, he smoothed out a miniscule wrinkle in his otherwise pristine grey suit jacket.

"State your name for the record."

"Dr. Eric Foreman."

"What is your current title?"

"Chief administrator of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital."

"But before that, you were one of Dr. House's fellows, is that correct?"

"Yes, although I was eventually promoted to a higher position within the department. I became the assistant head of the department."

The members of the panel took a moment to search through the sheaves of paper in front of them. "That's odd, Dr. Foreman," said the chairman. "We find no record of this promotion, although we do see that on several occasions, you substituted for Dr. House in his absence."

"Yes, that's right. When Dr. House was absent, I took over for him, running the department for as long as a few months at a time."

"You were asked to assume this role on several occasions?"

"Yes. In addition, Dr. Cuddy made me Dr. House's second-in-command in 2007."

The panel members searched again through the documents in front of them, conferring briefly. "We're sorry, Dr. Foreman, but we still see no formal acknowledgment of what you're telling us. Do you have paperwork that you could bring us supporting your claim?"

Foreman felt distinctly uncomfortable. _Shit_, he thought. He really should have made sure Cuddy put his promotion in writing. Now that he was the hospital's administrator himself, he recognized how important a paper trail could be. "No, I don't. I'm sure Dr. Cuddy will back me up on this, though, if you're planning to talk to her, too."

"We are and we will. Would you say that you an ambitious man, Dr. Foreman?"

"Yes, I guess I would." He was proud of his ascension to hospital administrator. It was the kind of professional success he'd wanted for a long time, and he found more satisfaction in being in charge of the hospital than he ever had being just one of House many fellows.

"During the times you were appointed temporary head of the department, were you able to retain Dr. House's success rate?"

"No, I was not." he replied reluctantly. And it still galled him.

"What was your success rate?"

"I believe it averaged around 70 percent."

"According to the records, during one of these times, you had some management issues; both members of the department's staff - at that time, it would have been Dr. Hadley and Dr. Taub - left the department shortly after you took over for Dr. House."

"Yes, that's correct."

"Would you care to explain what happened?"

_No, not particularly, _thought Foreman_. _He cleared his throat and took a sip of water to give himself time to find a way to present what happened so he didn't sound quite so inept. He'd learned a lot since then. "Dr. Hadley and I were involved in a relationship, and I felt that my promotion created an awkward situation at work, so I terminated her employment. Dr. Taub told me he had taken the position specifically to work with Dr. House and not me, so he left the hospital."

"I do see in your records that you quit working for Dr. House briefly in 2007, taking a position at New York Mercy for a few weeks before returning. Could you tell us what happened to precipitate your resignation?"

"I became concerned that I was becoming too influenced by Dr. House's attitude, that I was becoming too much like him, so I left."

"And yet, you returned to his employ only a few weeks later. Could you explain that, please?"

Foreman still harbored bitter feelings about what had happened at Mercy. He still believed, based on what he had learned about diagnostics from House, that he had behaved appropriately, and part of him still blamed House and his methods for what had happened. "At New York Mercy, I approached a case as Dr. House would have, which involved my disobeying a direct order from the head of the hospital. Although I saved the patient's life, I was let go. Dr. Cuddy rehired me as part of Dr. House's team shortly thereafter."

Even after all these years, he felt that Cuddy had enticed him back under false pretenses, leading him to believe she would let him return with a promotion and a raise. But it didn't happen that way, and Foreman's resentment had festered in the meantime. His mind drifted as he thought about how insulted he'd felt when she offered him his same old job with the same old salary. Of course, now he _was_ Cuddy, in a sense, and he was not totally sure he'd have behaved any differently than she had, given similar circumstances. Why should she pay him more when she could get him at his old pay rate? And why would she promote him when he had failed so spectacularly after leaving PPTH?

While Foreman pondered the past, the panel chairman addressed the woman in the green (or was it pink?) suit who operated the digital recorder, asking her to play back Dr. Foreman's statement about why he had resigned from Dr. House's department. After listening to the statement, the head of the panel said, "You say you were concerned that you were 'becoming too influenced by his attitude.' What exactly were your concerns?"

Getting himself back on track, Foreman replied, "I felt that Dr. House was reckless and unpleasant to work for, and I felt that I could do better elsewhere, without having to play by his rules."

"Despite his extraordinary reputation and success rate?"

"Yes."

"Then why did you return?"

Foreman clenched his jaw, spitting out the truth. "After the incident at New York Mercy, I was essentially unemployable. Dr. Cuddy hired me back." At the time, he'd been unable to understand why House could get away with insubordination, while he, at New York Mercy, had not. But now, with the benefit of time and experience, he found himself seeing it a little more clearly. House had proved himself medically; his track record was unparalleled. But Foreman was a novice, untried, untested, in a new job, and disobeying a direct order, even though he'd saved the life, was not something to be tolerated. With a start, he realized that he certainly wouldn't put up with that same kind of behavior if one of his staff pulled that same nonsense with him. Maybe… just maybe… he'd deserved what happened to him. It was not a comforting thought. He was startled out of his contemplation by the next question.

"How would you describe Dr. House, both as a physician and as your supervisor?"

Despite his introspection, Foreman wasn't willing to give House any props. "He was abrasive, manipulative and confrontive."

"And yet, very successful."

Foreman responded almost unwillingly. "Yes. Very successful."

"Why do think that was?"

Foreman again clenched his jaw. "Despite his personality flaws, he had one of the greatest medical minds in the world."

"When did you become the hospital's chief administrator?"

"In 2011, after Dr. House was incarcerated and Dr. Cuddy left."

"Can you tell us how this promotion came about?"

"Certainly. Over the years, I had become friendly with several of the board members, so when Dr. Cuddy resigned, I submitted my credentials."

"Despite the fact that you had not had a stellar history while managing Dr. House's department?"

Foreman was surprised by this question, and felt some annoyance that even now, it was still considered House's department, not his. "I suppose so."

"Did anyone on the board give you a reason why you were chosen to head up the hospital, rather than someone with more administrative experience?"

"Well, one of the board members did say to me that if Dr. House returned, they would be more comfortable having someone in charge who could handle him."

"Who could _handle _him?"

"Yes."

"But from what you've told us, you were not really able to _handle _him while you worked for him, were you?"

"I-I…" He couldn't finish the sentence; he knew it was true, much as he tried to pretend it wasn't.

"Is it possible the board members were more interested in keeping the donations flowing, that perhaps they thought if someone who worked for House was nominally in charge that it might encourage those donors to keep giving?"

"I guess so. Hadn't considered that, actually." Crap. He really hadn't considered that they were just using him to get more money for the hospital. Was he actually only _nominally_ in charge? Foreman ignored the unsettling notion as the panel chairman got on with his next question.

"Although you clearly had issues with Dr. House's personality and management style, you continued to work for him. Why is that?"

"He was the best. Despite everything else, he was still the best."

"Even though you seem to have disliked the man, although you respected his talent, you had good reason to be grateful to him, didn't you? Would that be a fair assessment?"

Foreman was starting to feel put on the spot. "I suppose so," he replied reluctantly.

"Tell us about the case in 2006 that left you dangerously ill and in an isolation ward."

"I contracted a series of symptoms from a patient, and nearly died."

"So the doctor became the patient?"

"Yes."

"Did Dr. House find the cause of your illness?"

"Yes. It was _Naegleria fowleri_."

"Do you know how Dr. House went about diagnosing your case?"

"I assume it was his usual way… trial and error, breaking and entering… the usual."

"You assume? You don't know?"

"No, not really. Once I recovered, I went back to work and didn't really question his methods." He hadn't, had he? And why hadn't he? Had he shown as little interest in his patients as he had in his own case? Maybe that's why House seemed to feel he wasn't ready to be on his own.

"You never asked how he solved your case?"

"No."

"Is there anyone else who might know?"

"Dr. Chase or Dr. Cameron would know, although I believe Dr. Cameron has moved away."

"We'll be talking to Dr. Chase and Dr. Cameron later. We understand that one of Dr. House's basic approaches to solving these medical mysteries was to avoid contact with patients whenever possible, in order to retain his objectivity. Is that accurate?"

"Yes."

"And yet, in your case, because he knew you, he couldn't have maintained that objectivity, could he? Did you see any evidence that he took your case more personally than he did others?"

"Well, after Dr. Cuddy refused to allow him to do an autopsy on the patient I had contracted the illness from, he did bring my father in to the hospital and confronted Dr. Cuddy with him. My dad told me later that Dr. House attempted to make Dr. Cuddy feel guilty for not allowing him to run tests on the corpse of the original patient while trying to… save my life." Wow. He hadn't thought about that in years.

"Was that ploy successful?"

"No, although later on, Dr. Cuddy did try to apologize to me… I refused to accept her excuses." He heard the word "excuses" come out of his mouth as he said it, realizing his wording expressed just how he'd felt at the time, that Cuddy had rationalized sticking by the rules in a situation that seemed destined to end with Foreman's death. Would he now, faced with the same situation, stick by the rules, or save the life? He wasn't sure.

"So, in this one instance at least, you had reason to be grateful that Dr. House was so tenacious?"

"I suppose so." Foreman suppressed a grimace, hating even in this to give House the benefit of the doubt, his younger self at war with the newer, wiser version.

"You suppose so? You seem to display a surprising lack of curiosity or gratitude, Dr. Foreman. Dr. House saved your life, didn't he?"

Foreman hadn't expected to feel under scrutiny by the inquiry panel, and he was unprepared for it, so he responded defensively. "Well, actually, Dr. Cameron performed a brain biopsy on me about the same time that Dr. House found the solution, also coming up with the correct answer."

"So you feel that your life would have been saved whether or not Dr. House was involved."

"Yes, I guess. Yes." He believed that, didn't he?

The panel chair frowned a bit at this, and the panel members conferred briefly before changing subjects.

"The night of the Trenton crane collapse in May of 2010, you saw Dr. House after he returned from the collapse site. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"What happened?"

"He had spent several hours underneath the rubble trying to save the life - and the leg - of a trapped woman. She died anyway, and he was unusually affected."

"You expressed concern for him?"

"Yes. He looked awful. Apparently, he had also been injured in a secondary collapse." In his mind's eye, he remembered how shaken up House had looked, and how, just that once, he'd felt something resembling compassion for the man.

"What was the extent of his injuries?"

"I didn't get the opportunity to examine him, but he seemed to have a wound on his shoulder and there was blood on his face."

"May we ask why Dr. House, with his disability, had been at the accident site in the first place, while you, an able-bodied man, were not?"

"I was in the ER. I'm not sure why Dr. House was at the accident site."

"Do you feel, in your position as the current administrator, that it would be appropriate to expect someone with Dr. House's disability to treat patients at an accident site?"

"I never gave it much thought. No, I suppose not."

"During your tenure, both as his employee and as his employer, can you think of any instances in which consideration was given to Dr. House's disability?"

Dr. Foreman looked puzzled for a moment. "No… no. Other than his handicapped parking space, none that I can think of. But then, he never wanted pity, and made himself pretty insufferable to make sure he didn't get any." But now, _he_ was the hospital administrator, responsible for adhering to the ADA laws regarding disabled employees. It dawned on him, possibly for the first time, that Cuddy had not done much to accommodate House's physical limitations.

For some reason, this reminded Foreman of the time he'd ventured to House's apartment with a message from Cuddy that she would fire him if he didn't come into work that day. But House was known for his attendance, seldom taking either sick days or vacations, so why shouldn't he have been allowed a personal day now and then? Why did Cuddy feel the need to threaten to fire him over one rare personal day? And how, given House's tenure, did she believe she had the authority to terminate his employment on a moment's notice?

"What was Dr. House's relationship like with Dr. Cuddy at this time?"

He shook off his tangential thoughts, refocusing his attention on the question. "I'm not sure. Certainly, they had a number of heated conflicts prior to the accident."

"And yet…" - the chair of the panel checked his notes - "two days after the accident, they formally contacted the HR department and registered a relationship status report. Did you have any reaction to that?"

"Not really. I just figured if he was having sex regularly, he'd be easier to deal with. And he was."

"Tell us what happened with Dr. House after his breakup with Dr. Cuddy."

"He… well, he fell apart. Completely. He began drinking heavily, taking a lot of Vicodin…"

"Excuse me. Had he been drug-free throughout the relationship up to that point?"

"Yes, as far as I know. Since he returned from Mayfield, he had been taking only NSAIDS."

"Continue."

"As I said, he was taking Vicodin again, hiring hookers… that sort if thing. He even married a woman who needed a green card… I think it was just to get under Dr. Cuddy's skin… maybe he was hoping she would stop him… that if she cared enough, she would stop him."

"Was this successful?"

"No. It was not. They never got back together again."

"Did anyone attempt to intervene, to help Dr. House through this rough period?"

"I'm pretty sure Dr. Wilson did, but Dr. Wilson could sometimes… well, he tended to lecture House, which House didn't take well, even under the best of circumstances."

"How did Dr. Cuddy act around Dr. House?"

"She seemed angry, and confrontive."

"Was this different from how things had been before they began their relationship?"

"Very similar in some ways, although before they got involved, she seemed to be sending mixed messages - you know, flirting one minute, then ignoring him the next, and then yelling at him. Afterward, it was a weird combination of ignoring him and confrontation."

"Did no one contact his psychiatrist at Mayfield? Were any of you concerned he would have another mental breakdown?"

What would he do if it was happening now? Now that he was in charge? Would he have allowed House to go into a freefall as Cuddy had? And here was a disconcerting thought: Were there times since he took charge when he could he have done more to help the man he'd brought back from prison? He didn't know the answer, and he didn't like the question. "I-I know we were concerned, but no, I don't believe anyone other than Dr. Wilson really attempted to intervene, and I'm pretty sure none of us contacted either Mayfield or his psychiatrist about what was happening."

"Were you surprised when you found out that Dr. House had driven into Dr. Cuddy's home?"

_Get back on track, Eric_, he said to himself. "Actually, yes. Although I had seen him be very _self_-destructive over the years, I'd never seen him out of control like that, or seen him lash out in anger at someone else… at least for anything more than what he considered general stupidity… or when he was in extreme pain from detoxing."

"We understand that you were responsible for returning Dr. House to the hospital following his incarceration. Is that correct?"

"Yes, although he was on parole."

"At that time, did you know the circumstances of how he came to be incarcerated?"

"Yes. When I approached the state prison about obtaining his release, I was informed."

"Could you tell us what those circumstances were?"

"Yes. Apparently, once he came back to the country, he turned himself in, refused legal counsel, and accepted what was undoubtedly a much longer prison sentence than he would have received had he retained an attorney."

"Do you have any explanation for why he might have done that?"

"I couldn't say." Why had he done it? Why had he refused legal help? Why had House passively accept that ridiculous sentence? Could he have felt guilty about what he'd done? Did he feel he had deserved it? Sometimes Foreman had trouble believing House even had feelings, but was there any other explanation for his behavior?

"Is there anything else you'd care to add to this inquiry?"

Foreman suddenly remembered a moment that he had conveniently forgotten, the moment after Foreman had tampered with Thirteen's clinical trial, when he had attempted to come clean about what he'd done, which would have destroyed him professionally… and House had helped him salvage his career. Perhaps, just maybe, House had cared enough about him to try to keep him from making a career-demolishing decision. But Foreman knew there was no way he could mention that situation without drawing attention to his own ethical lapse.

"No. There's nothing else I can think to add."

"Thank you, Dr. Foreman. That's all we have for now. We'll recall you if we have any further questions. We will reconvene tomorrow at 9 a.m."

Foreman gladly left the room.


	5. Day 2, 9 am Chase

**Day Two, 9 a.m. - Tuesday**

It was Chase's turn. As the handsome blond doctor slid into the seat across from the panel, he was asked by the reporter to state his name.

"Dr. Robert Chase."

"What is your position at the hospital?"

"I am the head of the Diagnostics Department."

"So you are Dr. House's replacement," said the gentleman directly in front of him.

"If you say so," said Chase. "I don't believe anyone could ever truly replace him." No, Gregory House was one of a kind.

"We understand that, of all Dr. House's employees, you had been with him the longest. Is that correct?"

"Yes, although I did leave a couple of times. But the inspiration of working with Dr. House was too appealing to abandon altogether."

"Tell us about working for Dr. House. What was he like to work for?"

"He was a challenge, both as a boss and as a human being," he said, finally.

"In what ways was he a challenge?"

"House really liked to push the boundaries… and to push people's buttons. When we were working on cases, that could be both frustrating and, ultimately, very useful and even exhilarating. What I mean is, he often knew the answer to the medical puzzle we were trying to solve long before the rest of us did, but he preferred to push us, tease us and even annoy us so that we would come up with the answers ourselves."

Chase continued. "As a human being, he could be infuriating. He loved practical jokes, mind games and just plain being loathsome at times. I thought for a long while that he was simply an impossible person, but as I got to know him over the years, I came to the conclusion that - although he could definitely be annoying - on some level, he was testing us, testing our mettle and, in a way, testing whether we would stick by our diagnoses… and stick by him… even though he was being impossible." He had learned that lesson the hard way, and it had taken him many years to see past House's façade to begin to understand the man behind it, and his methods.

"Do you have any explanations for this?"

"There seemed to be some insecurities there. I think he believed he had value only as a doctor and not as a human being. He was very distrustful of emotions, and I think maybe he used that unpleasant persona - and I do believe it was a persona - to keep us at an emotional distance, and thereby protect himself."

"You said you thought he was testing your mettle. What did you mean by that?"

For a long moment, Chase stared thoughtfully at the clock on the wall behind the three men and two women in front of him. "I think he pushed us, pushed us _hard_, to see if we had the strength of character to stand up to him, and especially to stand up to him when it really mattered, when a patient's life was at stake. I remember once, shortly after I started working for him, hearing him say that he had no problem with subordinates disagreeing with him - that, in fact, he encouraged it. He wanted the answer, and he didn't really care if he was the one to come up with it, or if it was one of us. He just wanted the answer."

_He just wanted the answer_, thought Chase. House had wanted the answer to everything - from solving a given patient's health problem, to what made people tick, to how to hack into the hospital's computer system, to the meaning of life… to everything. Chase thought about the bigger-than-life man in whose presence he'd spent all those years, whose enormous brilliance of mind was offset only by his undeniable need to make trouble for himself and others.

He remembered trailing along in House's footsteps as the tall, grizzled, rumpled man had lumbered up and down the halls of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, and he wondered if he'd ever inspire in his own fellows the same sense of awe and wonder that House had inspired in him… and if so, whether he could manage to do so without also inspiring the irritation, condescension and sometimes even sheer terror his predecessor had generated.

As he pondered the practical jokes, the wittiness, the cleverness, the sarcasm that popped out of House's mouth on a regular basis, Chase knew he'd never have a mind as quick as that, and that he'd have to fight constantly to remember to tell the truth when it really mattered, rather than play it safe, play it nice. But for House, telling the truth as he saw it was like breathing, and he hadn't given a rat's ass if his truth-telling upset someone. God, he missed the man! What he wouldn't give for one more hour as a fellow instead of as a department head, and he wished he'd appreciated it a little more when he had the opportunity. Maybe if House hadn't been such a jackass most of the time…

Shaking off his mental tangent, Chase brought himself back to the present. "He was also not interested in publicity," he continued, "as some famous doctors are, and, as I said, he was not overly concerned about being the only one to be right. He didn't seem to have much ego that way, although in other areas… well, the stories are legend. All that mattered to him was getting the right answer and saving the patient's life, which made him an excellent teacher and supervisor." _And an excellent role model_, thought Chase, gratefully, _if only his personal demons hadn't gotten in his way._

The panel chairman asked Chase the same question he had asked Thirteen. "Would you say that Dr. House was an ethical man?"

Chase thought back on his dad, and how House had promised his father not to mention his terminal cancer diagnosis to Chase, even though he knew it might upset Chase the younger to find out that House had known his father was dying when he himself had been oblivious. If House made a promise, he really did everything he could to stick by it. He might lie about other things, but a promise was sacred to him. "Yes," he answered, finally. "He was very ethical, in his own way. I mean, he might do things others would find unethical, but when it came right down to it, he stood by what he believed was right."

"Anything else along those lines?"

Chase suddenly remembered the way House had quietly bolstered him after he'd killed the genocidal maniac Dibala. He decided it would be better all around if he omitted that from his testimony, so he headed in a different direction.

"Yes. I was indebted to him for standing up for me early on, when I first started working for him. I had made a terrible medical mistake, and he refused to allow me to throw my career away because of it. He backed me and supported me throughout the whole horrible situation, insisting that I explain the extenuating circumstances that had led to that mistake. In another instance, I behaved rather badly, betraying his trust. But after a few weeks of needling me, he chose to overlook it, even though I had made it clear I had been more interested in keeping my job than in being loyal to him. I learned from that, and don't believe I ever did anything like that again. He deserved my loyalty, and he got it from then on. House was… well, I owed him a lot."

_Where had I been going with that sentence_, Chase wondered. Had he been about to say, "House was… like a father?" Out of the blue, he recalled one of the last times he and House had interacted, when House had handed him that black rat, in payment for Chase ratting out House's supposed liver failure to Foreman. Was that so very different from ratting House out to Vogler? Had he actually progressed in all those years? After a moment of self-doubt, Chase decided that yes, he had. That situation was vastly different from the one so many years earlier. With Vogler, Chase had been out for self-preservation, willing to betray House for job security. With Foreman, Chase was genuinely concerned about House's health. Yes, very different.

"It sounds as if you admired him," Chase heard the chairman say.

"I did," he agreed wholeheartedly, and then, more hesitantly, almost as if he was ashamed to admit it, "…and, ultimately, I liked him, too."

"Would you say that the two of you were friends?"

_Were we? I certainly thought of him as a friend… I'm just not sure he thought of me that way_. "Yes, although not initially. We became friends over time. I think our friendship grew during the time when Dr. Wilson left after Dr. Volakis died."

"Is there anything you'd care to add to that?"

"Well, I probably shouldn't say this, but a few years later, when Dr. Wilson was attempting to rekindle the relationship with his ex-wife, he actually paid us to go spend time with Dr. House. I found that kind of offensive."

"Did you take Dr. Wilson's money?"

"Sure. Why not? Money's a good thing, and if Dr. Wilson was stupid enough to give it away, I certainly wasn't going to turn it down. But I'd have gone out with Dr. House even if no money had been involved. He could be a lot of fun. A _lot_ of fun. But Dr. House was pretty private, and tended to mock us, so I'm not sure I would have initiated it if Dr. Wilson hadn't pushed us in that direction."

"Dr. Foreman began working with Dr. House about a year after you did, but we understand he was put in charge of the department on several occasions. How did that work out?"

"Honestly? Well, I guess I should preface this by saying that Eric and I have not always seen eye to eye on things, so please take that into account. I felt he was not a particularly good manager. He came across as arrogant and dogmatic."

"And yet, we understand that Dr. House could be arrogant, too."

"There was a difference. Dr. House had the talent to back it up. Eric doesn't. And Dr. House would take our opinions into consideration. In fact, he insisted on it."

"And you felt that Dr. Foreman did not?"

"I _know_ he did not." Chase knew he might be throwing Foreman under the bus, but he was only speaking the truth as he knew it, taking a page from House's book. Maybe he really had come a very long way from that horrible betrayal, when he had ratted House out to Vogler.

"What else happened while Dr. Foreman substituted for Dr. House?"

"Well, I wasn't working for Dr. House during the one big blowup."

"Big blowup?"

"Yes. Eric's approach to management was much different from Dr. House's. What I heard at the time, and what I observed of his personality over a period of years, was that Dr. Foreman was much more concerned than Dr. House was with asserting his authority and with getting credit for any successes. Within a few weeks of taking over the department, the other two fellows - Dr. Hadley and Dr. Taub - had both left. I heard that he fired Dr. Hadley, whom he was dating at the time, because she went against his wishes to solve a difficult case. She was right, by the way."

Chase grinned, remembering his suspicions that House had somehow gotten himself involved in that diagnosis, even though his license had not yet been reinstated and he hadn't even come back to work at the hospital after his stint at Mayfield. He'd always wondered about that, but had never asked House. A mystery that would remain unsolved, he decided, wistfully.

"And yet Dr. Foreman himself had been fired from New York Mercy for similar insubordination."

"I wouldn't know about that. I was in another department at that point." _Interesting_, thought Chase, bemused.

"Were you present when Dr. Foreman became ill with _Naegleria fowleri_?"

"Yes."

"Dr. Foreman has told us that he believes that his case would have been solved by Dr. Cameron, who did a brain biopsy on him, whether or not Dr. House was involved with the case. Do you agree with that assessment?"

_Don't react, Robbie_, Chase thought, inhaling sharply as he attempted to control his outward response. He and Foreman often had their differences, but until this precise moment, he had not quite realized just how different they were. When he pulled himself together, he said, "Actually, no. I don't."

"Why do you say that?"

Although he tried, Chase simply couldn't contain his reaction. "For God's sake, House damned near killed himself to save Foreman! At the last minute, he actually risked his own life to enter the patient's contaminated apartment, desperate to find out what had killed the patient and was killing Foreman, too. He tried to stop Allison - Dr. Cameron - from performing that brain biopsy, because he felt it was far too risky. In fact, Foreman _did_ suffer some brain damage as a result, although he eventually recovered."

"But Dr. House often performed risky procedures, didn't he?"

"Yes, but only when he saw no other way. In this case, he clearly believed that there was another way. And he was right."

The panel members conferred privately for a moment.

"We have already heard that Dr. House could be intensely loyal to people he cared about, but that he preferred to keep an emotional distance from patients so that he could look at their symptoms objectively. How were those two conflicting concepts reflected in his treatment of Dr. Foreman?"

Chase calmed himself down, and thought back eight years. He remembered observing House's resolve to save his fellow. "I think he was very emotionally affected, which made him all the more determined to find the answer. I remember seeing him staring at Foreman in the isolation room for hours; he had a tortured expression on his face. I honestly think he felt responsible for the fact that someone in his employ had become so very ill. And yet, he attempted to retain some objectivity, because I think he really believed that perspective on the situation was the only way to save Foreman."

"Dr. House fired you at one point, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did."

"What was his reason for this?"

"He never actually came out and said it, but I believe he felt I had become competent to move on, and in his own way, was trying to get me to leave the nest. It turned out to be a very good thing for me and helped me to grow, both as a doctor and as a person." Funny how he'd been so fearful of losing his job when Vogler was running things, and how much he hadn't cared about it when House ultimately fired him… because he'd been ready.

"But you came back."

"Yes, I did. I really missed the excitement of diagnostics, and the… well, the thrill of seeing his mind in action."

"When Dr. House was in prison, I understand that you took an extended leave."

"Yes, that's correct."

"May we ask why?"

"I had returned to the department solely to work with Dr. House again, so when the department was disbanded, I had no desire to function in any other capacity at the hospital. For me, it had become all or nothing."

"Why was the department shut down? It sounds as if there were talented people still working there. The rest of you might not have been able to match Dr. House's success rate, but you had been trained by him."

"I think that may have been exactly what the problem was… we were too close to House. What I heard at the time was that Dr. Cuddy, who was furious with House for the damage he did to her home, was trying to eradicate anything connected with him. As I understand it, donations to the hospital decreased dramatically shortly thereafter, so she used the resulting lack of funds as her excuse to shut down the department."

"Was Dr. Foreman hired as the administrator during that time?"

"Shortly after. Dr. Cuddy left and Dr. Foreman took over."

"Was your reluctance to continue on in another department perhaps due to not wanting to work as a subordinate to someone who had been an equal colleague before then, and with whom you've already admitted you had conflicting views?"

"I suspect that was part of it," he admitted. "Mostly, though, I just preferred to work for Dr. House than for anyone else."

"So you admired him, even after he had been imprisoned for an act of domestic violence? Some might say you were blinded to his faults."

Chase laughed aloud. He couldn't help himself. "There's no way you could work for House and be blinded to his faults. He left them out there for everyone to see. There were the obvious things - at times, he drank too much, plus he developed a long-standing problem with painkillers, which he struggled to overcome - sometimes more successfully than other times. He challenged authority and could be rude and even unpleasant. If anything, we were often blinded to his virtues, because he clasped those very dear to his heart. I think he preferred us to think of him as a jerk, but a jerk who got the job done, rather than for us to perhaps pity him for his disability or what he perceived as weaknesses in his personality."

"What kind of weaknesses are you talking about here, Dr. Chase?"

"I think he believed that traits others saw as positive, he saw as negative in himself. For example, he almost always hid it when he did something generous or thoughtful. The only exception would be when it came to his friend Dr. Wilson. He would - and did - do anything for that man." Anything, even faking his own death, being willing to give up his name, his career, everyone he knew, his assets (even his beloved piano), not to mention his reputation, and ultimately his freedom, just to spend those precious few months with Wilson.

"Are you referring to the incident with Dr. Volakis?"

"Yes… among other things," said Chase, not really thinking of Amber's death at all. "He bowed to Dr. Wilson's every wish in that situation, something he would never have done for the family member of any other patient. Much of what Dr. Wilson asked him to do wasn't sound medically. Plus, there was the deep brain stimulation, which Dr. Wilson requested of him. I don't think there is anyone else on earth Dr. House would have sacrificed that much for."

"Didn't you just tell us, though, that he was willing to risk his life for Dr. Foreman?"

"Yes, but this was different. For Foreman, he was willing to sacrifice his life. For Wilson, he was willing to risk his _mind_. That's not the same thing at all. Especially for Dr. House, who valued his own mind more than almost anything."

"Thank you, Dr. Chase. Let's take a 15-minute break and we'll meet you back here at 11 a.m."


	6. Day 2, 11 am Chase 2

**Day Two, 11 a.m.**

During the break, Chase grabbed a candy bar and a diet Coke from the machines outside the hearing room, and the jolt of sugar and caffeine rejuvenated him. When he came back into the room, memories of House swirled around in his mind. Every single day, as he walked into that office, as he sat behind that desk, as he tossed House's oversized tennis ball in the air, pondering the latest medical mystery, he thought about House. He remembered the practical jokes, the quickness of House's wit, the brilliant medical mind, the rarely viewed sensitivity of his former boss… and mostly, the tormented man who had come to mean so much to him.

As he settled himself in for another round of questions, he opened the bottle of water in front of him, and took a big swig, feeling the sensation as ice-cold liquid slid down his throat while he waited for the panel chair to address him, wondering where all this was going to lead.

"Were you working for Dr. House when Dr. Cuddy began her relationship with him?" asked the chair.

"Yes, I was," Chase replied.

"Could you tell us what you observed?"

"Do you want just my observations, or my opinion as well?"

"Let's start with the observations."

"Initially, he seemed pleased," said Chase. "The two of them had flirted around each other from the time I started working at the hospital."

"Flirted? How?"

"Well, if I may speak candidly here…"

"Yes, of course. This is confidential."

"… Dr. Cuddy had always dressed rather provocatively, and she tended to flaunt herself around Dr. House. You know, leaning over his desk in a low-cut blouse… that sort of thing. Of course, being a man with boundary issues, he commented, sometimes crudely, about her appearance and behavior."

"Were there consequences for him in those situations?"

"No… no, not really. She'd pretend to be annoyed, but she certainly seemed to enjoy the attention. And she never really set any kind of limits with him. It always seemed to me that, as his boss, if she were truly as annoyed as she claimed to be, she would make it clear to him that she wouldn't allow him to comment about her in a sexualized manner, and she would have been consistent about it - something she seldom was as his supervisor anyway. As far as I know, she never set those boundaries. In fact, she seemed to encourage him." Boundaries. Something about boundaries tickled Chase's brain.

"Did you observe her behaving the same way with anyone else at the hospital?"

"No. Never."

"How would you describe her management style with Dr. House?"

"Hard to say. As I said, there didn't seem to be a lot of consistency in her approach to dealing with him. She always seemed to run hot and cold - one minute flirting very obviously, and the next denying him the right to do a procedure or screaming at him like a shrew."

He thought back on how many times he'd seen Cuddy lose her temper with House, when it had seemed to him that simply setting limits… boundaries… for him and being consistent about what she would and wouldn't allow would be far more effective. In his experience, House tended to respond much better to that kind of consistency than he did otherwise. When people didn't set limits for him, he'd keep pushing until something broke.

It dawned on Chase that perhaps part of what happened with Cuddy was that she'd never really set limits with House, so he kept pushing to see how far she'd let him go… and ultimately the defining limit was him crashing his car into her home. Chase's mind drifted for a moment as he wondered if she was more consistent in setting limits for Rachel than she had been with House.

"Screaming at him?" Chase tilted his head toward the new questioner, a woman on the far left of the long table. He felt himself go on alert. She was going to be the one to ask the really hard questions, he thought, noticing the razor-sharp intelligence evident in her eyes. This was going to be interesting.

"Yes," he replied, making sure to maintain eye contact with the woman. "Dr. Cuddy tended to get angry with him a lot, and she often lost her temper. The two of them reminded me of kids on a playground. You know the kind - the little boy finds a worm, or a spider, and shows it to the girl he likes, just to get a reaction out of her, while the girl squeals and yells and calls him names, when secretly she likes the attention."

"Did you ever say any of this to either Dr. House or Dr. Cuddy?"

"No, of course not. Wasn't my place."

"Continue."

"In addition, there was an awful lot of micro-management going on - something she didn't seem to do with any other department heads. Oftentimes, Dr. Cuddy challenged his medical judgment about how to treat a patient - usually for no medical reason that I could discern. She really has a stronger background in administration than in medicine, and I think it galled House when she would pull rank over his medical judgment. Although occasionally, I must say, she was justified - Dr. House could occasionally recommend truly radical treatment ideas in order to find the answer to a medical puzzle. But sometimes I think he suggested these crazy ideas just to get a rise out of Dr. Cuddy… just to see how she'd react, how far she'd let him go."

Again, she hadn't set boundaries, he thought. She let him get away with it. A disturbing thought occurred to Chase. Was he blaming Cuddy for what had happened? She'd been a victim, hadn't she? And yet, there was part of Chase that would always be on House's side, a part that did blame Cuddy for not handling things better before it got out of control.

"As you mentioned, Dr. House tended to challenge the rules, didn't he?"

"Yes. I think he had a real issue with authority figures, but in my experience, when he was treated with respect, he tended to tone down his behavior. Unfortunately, hardly anyone ever treated the man with the respect I feel he deserved. As a result, he acted out." _That was an understatement_, thought Chase, momentarily amused.

"Anything else about Dr. Cuddy's interactions with Dr. House?"

"Yes. I guess the most surprising thing to me is that she constantly harped on him to do his paperwork and clinic hours. I come from a very different system in Australia, where a doctor of House's caliber would have an administrative assistant handle the paperwork, and he would be allowed to devote himself exclusively to his specialty and not wipe runny noses a few times a week. In fact, all the other department heads had administrative assistants. I really never understood why Dr. Cuddy didn't assign him one if she was that concerned about the damned paperwork. God knows the department was bringing in enough money."

It was obvious to him that Cuddy had not really wanted that paperwork handled in the most efficient way possible; she'd merely wanted an excuse to get in House's face about something. When he'd briefly worked in other departments, Chase couldn't remember ever seeing Cuddy make even one appearance. She never showed up unannounced, never yelled at the department heads, never harangued them about paperwork, never flaunted her sexuality. But when he'd worked for House, she was in and out of there constantly. And it's not like the fourth floor was on her way to somewhere else… her office was on the first floor.

"Do you have anything else to say on that subject?"

"Yes. Considering the fact that Dr. House's reputation and that of our department were responsible for the majority of the hospital's donations, it did disturb me sometimes when she spoke of him - and _to_ him - in demeaning ways." Of course, they'd all rolled their eyes at House's behavior at times, but Cuddy tended to talk down to him as if he were a recalcitrant child, incapable of functioning without her. And yet, House brought more money into her hospital than all the other doctors combined, and his professional reputation had rubbed off on the reputation of the hospital.

A previously quiet member of the panel, a frail-looking bald man on Chase's far right, spoke up at this point.

"Was this before, during or after they embarked on a sexual relationship?"

"I was thinking of the times before they got involved. But I guess it could also apply during and after."

"Thank you, Dr. Chase. I'll turn the questioning back to the chair."

The man at the center of the table nodded toward the bald man, then turned and tilted his head questioningly toward the female who asked the hard questions. She nodded her head, so he deferred to her. As Chase had anticipated, she asked another hard question: "Did Dr. House's relationship with Dr. Cuddy affect how he did his job?"

_Uh-oh_, thought Chase, automatically slipping back into his old "cover your ass" mentality. "I would rather not answer."

"We understand that you would rather not say anything about your former employer. However, your testimony here _is _confidential, and we would appreciate an honest answer."

Chase slowly exhaled. Of all the things he'd learned from House over the years, the most important one was that only the truth mattered… so, by God, he'd tell the truth as he saw it. "All right. The relationship with Dr. Cuddy had a negative effect on Dr. House's ability to do his job."

"How so?" The woman's eyes scrutinized Chase's face as he answered.

"He grew more… well, more timid, in a way. I'm not sure if Dr. Cuddy was actually pressuring him to be more cautious, or if he was just concerned that she might not approve of something he was doing… and that might somehow affect their personal relationship… but he was not as bold medically."

"Is boldness a virtue?"

"Sometimes. Certainly for Dr. House, who treated only lost causes, it was occasionally essential to take a leap of faith, to try something radical in the hopes that it might work."

"And you say that he was less willing to take those leaps of faith once he became involved with Dr. Cuddy?"

"Yes. No question about it."

"Did this affect your department's success rate?"

"Yes, it did."

"Could you give us the statistics?"

"I don't know of them off the top of my head, but I'm sure they are available to you." He gestured vaguely toward the mounds of paper scattered along the top of the long table. He couldn't help but add, less than charitably, "His success rate was still much higher than when Dr. Foreman was in charge."

"Were you present at the collapse site in Trenton?"

"No, I was not. I was in the ER."

"Did you hear about anything that occurred that day, which, I believe, took place the same day Dr. House and Dr. Cuddy began their relationship?"

"Dear God, I think everybody in Princeton heard about that! Apparently, during the time that he was trying to save the life and leg of a woman trapped in the rubble, Dr. Cuddy lost her temper with him more than once, screaming at him about personal issues in front of other doctors and nurses on site. From what I understand, she was quite scathing toward him. The people I heard it from said the whole thing was very unpleasant, but that Dr. House just stood there and took her abuse. Almost as if he felt he deserved it."

"Abuse?"

"…"

"Dr. Chase."

He hesitated, then exhaled sharply before answering. "Yes. From what I hear, it was very nasty, and, apparently, abusive."

"Of the two of them, which would you say had the more volatile emotions?"

He didn't have to hesitate. "Dr. Cuddy. No question about it. Dr. Cuddy. Dr. House could be self-destructive, but he rarely expressed anger toward another person, and he could be remarkably forgiving - at least toward people he cared about - even when he had genuinely been wronged."

"And yet we understand that, at one point, he actually punched you."

"Yes, he did. But there were extenuating circumstances. Dr. Cuddy had restricted his pain medication to the extent that he was going through withdrawal, and he was under investigation - wrongly, I believe - by a vindictive son-of-a-bitch cop who was trying to get him imprisoned and his license revoked. The stresses on him were inconceivable. Plus, a few years later, I punched him myself, so we were even."

"You did?"

"Yes. After the breakup of my marriage with Dr. Cameron, everyone in the department was giving me advice and pushing me to express my feelings - a somewhat similar situation to what happened with Dr. House and Dr. Cuddy later on. I truly believe Dr. House goaded me into hitting him as a way to let the rest of the department know to back off and let me work things through on my own. It's one of those things I mentioned earlier - he hid his good deed."

"Were you surprised when Dr. House ran his car into Dr. Cuddy's home?"

"Yes, terribly surprised… and alarmed. It seemed quite out of character for him, although I had overheard a couple of confrontations between him and Dr. Cuddy after the breakup. She - and Dr. Wilson - kept prodding him to express his feelings about the end of the relationship. Given my own reaction to that same kind of issue, I did sympathize with him somewhat when he finally snapped." He remembered how stunned he'd been when he heard about the crash. He hadn't believed House was capable of anything like that.

"And did he express his emotions about the breakup?"

Chase rolled his eyes. "I guess so… he crashed his car into her house, after all. That's a pretty strong emotional reaction. I know that - after a period of post-breakup insanity - he did seem to be trying to take the high road about it, but they just wouldn't leave him alone."

"It was during this time that he performed self-surgery, wasn't it?"

He'd never forget that night. After spending hours with Thirteen to save her former jail cellmate, he finally turned on his phone and found that shaky message from House begging for help. If he'd just had his phone on sooner, maybe… just maybe… things might have turned out differently. He could have done the surgery himself, he could have been there for House… and maybe it wouldn't have gone so very wrong after that. Chase felt his eyes sting a bit, and he swallowed another sip of water before answering.

"Yes, it was. He had always tried desperate measures to find a cure for his leg pain. Once he allowed us to believe he had brain cancer - although I realize now that he never actually _said_ he had cancer - because he was trying to get into a clinical trial. At the time, we thought he just wanted to get high, but in retrospect, I think he believed that if the pleasure centers of his brain were stimulated - which is what the trial was all about - that it might reduce his pain. As for the self-surgery incident, he had apparently been experimenting with an unapproved medication that caused some fast-growing tumors in his leg."

Dear God, Chase thought, how terrified must House have been to have scrubbed down his own bathroom and tried to remove those tumors himself? Why hadn't he called Chase to do it for him? Chase knew he would have performed the surgery for his boss, but maybe House was simply too embarrassed over the whole thing to admit, even to Chase, who had seen House at his worst and still stayed, what he'd done to himself. Yes, it was insane of him to have taken that unproved medication, but Chase knew, from repeated exposure to House over a period of years, just how desperate House got sometimes about trying to find a way to rid himself of that gnawing pain in his thigh.

Did anyone ever scan House afterward for additional tumors, he wondered, with a sinking feeling. Damn it. Couldn't someone in the hospital ever treat House like a patient when he needed it? Couldn't someone ever do what was medically appropriate for the man? He sighed, feeling anxiety build in the pit of his stomach.

"Do you have any other comments about the incident that ultimately sent him to prison?" asked the chairman.

Chase followed where his train of thought had just led him. "Yes," he said, "I really think that it wasn't just his emotions that caused him to snap. It is my medical opinion that there was might have been something physical going on that aggravated an already difficult situation… possibly residual issues from the deep brain stimulation of a few years earlier - which, by the way, I deeply regret performing - or perhaps side effects of the untried medication or the surgery itself."

"Thank you, Dr. Chase, for your testimony here today. We'll call you back if we have any further questions. Let's take a lunch break and reconvene at 1 p.m."


	7. Day 2, 1 pm Taub

**Day Two, 1 p.m.**

"State your name for the record."

"Dr. Christopher Taub."

"Dr. Taub, I understand you joined Dr. House's team in early 2007, around the same time as Dr. Hadley."

"Yes, that's correct."

"Like many of his fellows, you left his employ, but eventually returned. Could you explain your reasoning?"

"There was something challenging about working for Dr. House - something exciting about the work and about being around the man that was unlike anything else I ever experienced in medicine. I guess I really felt that we were doing something useful and important." He'd felt alive and valuable, for the first time in his medical career.

"You were working for him when Dr. Kutner committed suicide, were you not?"

Kutner's suicide still pained Taub; he had shoved those emotions away from him, but the panel's question brought them back full force. "Yes… yes, I was."

"Do you believe Dr. House was unusually affected by Dr. Kutner's suicide?"

Taub thought about it, remembering the day when House accused Kutner's adoptive parents of being at fault, then convincing himself that Kutner's death was murder, not suicide. "Yes, I would have to say he was."

"How was Dr. House's relationship with Dr. Kutner?"

Taub really didn't want to revisit this - to think back on the time when Kutner seemed to have House's approval, but he himself didn't. Since then, he had come to terms with his own feelings of inferiority, and realized that if House hadn't valued his input, he never would have hired him, or kept him on all those years.

"I think he had a special bond with Larry… Dr. Kutner. Dr. Kutner was almost like a less jaded, more innocent version of himself."

"So perhaps an almost paternal relationship?"

"Yes, I guess I would say that."

"Would you say that Dr. Kutner's suicide, following so closely upon Dr. Volakis' death, affected him greatly?"

"I would. Absolutely. He seemed tormented by those deaths - plus Dr. Wilson's having left."

"Dr. Wilson left?"

"Yes. Dr. Wilson took two months' leave after Dr. Volakis died, and, as far as I could tell, Dr. House just let him have his space. Finally he returned, but only to hand in his resignation and leave the hospital."

"But the two were best friends, were they not? Why would Dr. Wilson leave?"

"I guess he must have blamed House on some level for Dr. Volakis having gotten on that bus when she did. We actually heard through the wall between our offices what he said to Dr. House."

"I'm sorry… what exactly did Dr. Wilson say to him?"

"He accused House of causing misery to everyone around him, or something like that. The next part I'll never forget. He told House that they were no longer friends… that, in fact, he wasn't sure they ever had been friends. It was pretty appalling. I think House was devastated." Taub remembered how sickened he'd been when he heard what Wilson had said to House… and how shaken House had appeared afterward.

"But hadn't Dr. House taken considerable effort - while injured himself - to save Dr. Volakis?"

"Yes, but I think Dr. Wilson was so mired in his own grief that he discounted that… even the deep brain stimulation, which gave Dr. House seizures and put him briefly in a coma."

"But Dr. Wilson eventually returned, and they became friends again."

"Yes, but it was touchy with them for a long time afterward." House had seemed so tentative with Wilson after Wilson came back; on some level, he must have been afraid that Wilson would abandon him again. And damn, if the guy hadn't done just that - first, when he'd wanted to get together with his first wife and had kicked House out of the condo they'd shared, even though House was still recovering from his time at Mayfield Psychiatric, and later on, when House had been in prison. Taub couldn't understand what House saw in Wilson, why he repeatedly put himself in the position of being rejected by the man he apparently saw as his only friend.

"Under what circumstances did Dr. Wilson return?"

"You'd have to ask him for the details."

"Let me rephrase that. What did you observe?"

"Well, he came back shortly after Dr. House's father's funeral. When his father died, Dr. House refused to attend the funeral - there were actually rumors that perhaps he had been abused as a child. He certainly displayed some of the symptoms of an adult who had been abused as a child. But that's neither here nor there. I overheard Dr. Cuddy in Dr. House's office pushing him to prepare the eulogy that his mother had asked him to give. As I understand it, Dr. Cuddy and Dr. Wilson decided Dr. House really needed to attend."

"Even though Dr. House had made it clear that he did not want to go, and might have had pretty good justification for trying to avoid the situation?"

"Yes."

"And Dr. House _did_ attend?"

Crap. The rumor mill about House had always been so active - mostly because Dr. Wilson had trouble keeping his mouth shut and his nose out of House's business - but Taub wasn't sure he wanted to have to explain exactly how House had gone to his father's funeral.

"Dr. Taub? Could you answer the question, please?"

"Yes. He attended." Taub hoped his answer would be the end of it.

"Under what circumstances did he attend? If he was that set on avoiding the funeral, who convinced him to go? And how did it involve Dr. Wilson and his return to the hospital?"

Taub felt he had no choice but to answer. "I was working late, and I came into the conference room. I heard a thud. At the same time, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dr. House hit the floor, so I ran toward his office. Then I saw Dr. Cuddy standing in the doorway with a syringe in her hand."

The middle-aged woman on the far left of the panel jumped in at this point. "Are you saying that Dr. Cuddy drugged Dr. House?" she asked sharply.

Taub's head whipped in her direction. He closed his eyes and sighed. "Yes, ma'am, I am. I believe she injected him with Propofol, which, as I'm sure you know, acts swiftly. She told me that Dr. Wilson had agreed - somewhat unwillingly - to drive Dr. House to the funeral, but only because Dr. House's mother had asked him to. Dr. Cuddy couldn't get Dr. House down to the garage by herself, so she ordered me to help her get him into a wheelchair, which she had parked outside the office."

"She ordered you?"

"Yes."

"Then what happened?"

"I don't really know, just that Dr. Wilson returned to his job shortly after they came back from the funeral, and their friendship apparently got patched up."

"Thanks for your candor, Dr. Taub. I can't imagine that it's easy having to explain that incident." With that, the woman turned the questioning back over to the panel chair.

Taub felt a sense of relief that the woman seemed to have understood the situation he had found himself in, and had been sympathetic.

"Can you give us any other information about the relationship between Dr. House and Dr. Wilson?"

"Oh, they were always playing pranks on each other."

"Such as?"

"I remember once there was something about chickens." Of course, Wilson wasn't the only one House pranked. There was Chase's red hair. And the whole failing liver thing. And so many more.

All of a sudden, Taub's feelings overwhelmed him, as he recalled his gratitude over the way House had turned his skittishness after Chase's stabbing into a water-gun prank war; not only had it helped him deal with his anxiety, but they'd had fun, and he felt he'd gotten to know House better as a result.

"It sounds as if their friendship was occasionally rocky. Would you say that Dr. Wilson respected Dr. House?"

Taub exhaled slowly, pulling himself back into the present. "Maybe. Sometimes. I think, actually, he had no idea of the amount of work Dr. House put in to solve a case. More than once I heard him attribute it to luck. And I'm quite sure that he underestimated Dr. House's pain. Maybe because Dr. House spent so much time with us, sometimes with very little sleep, we saw things that even his friend didn't see."

"How about his relationship with Dr. Cuddy? Was it 'rocky' as well?"

"I would say that it was."

"In what ways?"

"She seemed to pay a lot of attention to Dr. House - more than she did to other department heads. I don't know how much of it was that he kind of demanded attention and how much was her interest in him, but she certainly spent a lot of time interacting with him… or perhaps I should say _reacting_ to him."

"What do you mean by reacting, as opposed to interacting?"

"She seemed almost emotionally invested in him, long before they became a couple. I'm not explaining this well, but let me see if I can give you some examples."

"Please do."

Taub rapidly scanned through all the possible scenarios, and two in particular stood out for him."

"Okay, here's one. After Dr. House and Dr. Hadley were taken hostage by a gunman…"

The chair interrupted. "Excuse me… was this the same gunman who shot him?"

"No, that was before my time. This was a man who was ill and was desperate for a diagnosis for his symptoms. Obviously, he was unstable. He brought a gun into the hospital and took a bunch of people hostage in Dr. Cuddy's office. Eventually, Dr. House diagnosed the guy and the SWAT team took him into custody. But that wasn't my point."

"What _was _your point?"

"After the whole thing was over, Dr. Cuddy was apparently angry because some damage had been done to her office in the process, and she blamed House for it. So she ensconced herself in his office, insisting that he share his desk with her, until her office could be redecorated."

"Weren't there other places she could have worked, other offices that might have been vacant?"

"That's just it. There were plenty of offices and conference rooms available. But she seemed to want to get in House's face about it. There was also a lot of sexual tension between the two of them."

"Would you say she was flirting?"

"Oh, God, yes."

"When did this take place?"

"Sometime in 2008, I think."

"Were you concerned about security?"

"Yes, I was. Very concerned. What's really odd, though, is that this was at least the second time Dr. House had been involved with a gunman, but he didn't seem at all worried about his safety. Personally, I don't understand why Dr. Cuddy didn't have better security in place - at the very least a metal detector - after the first time." Taub caught himself. "Perhaps I shouldn't have said that."

"No, it's all right. You're helping us to understand the conditions at the hospital. You said you had another example?"

Taub was starting to feel that he'd said too much, but he couldn't ignore a direct question. "The other time was after Dr. Cuddy adopted her daughter. She had worked from home briefly, but apparently resented Dr. House when she returned to work."

"Why do you say that? Why do you think she resented Dr. House?"

"I'm not sure why she felt her return was somehow his fault, but I was present when she played some really mean-spirited pranks on him, I guess to get even for whatever it was she thought he had done to her."

"Pranks? Like what?"

"When he got to work that day, he had to hobble up several flights of stairs because she had Out of Order signs placed on the elevators. When he finally showed up in our offices on the fourth floor, he looked awful… it was clear he was in an abnormal amount of pain. His limp was particularly pronounced, and he grimaced with every step. It must have cost him a lot to climb those stairs. Then, later the same day, his cane disappeared and he had to do without it altogether. The worst, though, was a trip wire in the entrance to our offices. He actually hurt himself when he fell."

The panel chair conferred with his colleagues a moment before responding to this revelation. "I'm sorry, Dr. Taub, but we find it almost incomprehensible that Dr. Cuddy would do these things, especially to a disabled employee."

"And yet, she did." Taub didn't know what else to say.

"How did you know it was Dr. Cuddy?"

"Word gets around… she had asked the janitor to put up the elevator signs, and a nurse to grab Dr. House's cane, and a fourth floor orderly to set the trip wire. None of whom kept their mouths shut about it. They all seemed to think it was terribly funny. Knowing how much pain Dr. House was in, I didn't."

"How did Dr. House react to these so-called pranks?"

"That's the interesting thing - he did nothing. He just let her get away with it."

"So he didn't file assault charges against her?"

"No. He let it go."

"No retaliation at all? No complaint registered with the HR Department?"

"None that I'm aware of. There may have been other 'pranks,' but those were the ones I was present for." Taub found himself getting angry on House's behalf all over again.

"Were there any other incidents of this nature between Dr. Cuddy and Dr. House?"

"Yes. I understand that when Dr. Cuddy was dating a former friend of Dr. House's, a private investigator named Lucas Douglas, she invited House for Thanksgiving dinner, but instead sent him on a wild goose chase about three hours from Princeton." He'd heard all about that from the hospital gossip, Dr. Wilson.

"Was driving difficult for Dr. House?"

"I don't know, but I do know that sitting for long periods of time seemed to aggravate his leg pain."

"So he drove, what, six hours - on Thanksgiving - only to find out that he had been tricked?"

"That's the long and the short of it, yes."

"Anything else?"

"Well, there was the whole thing with Lucas."

"What whole thing?"

Taub sighed. For a long time, he hadn't been a big fan of House, but some of the things that had been done to him did offend Taub's sense of right and wrong. He forged ahead.

"After Dr. Wilson bought a condo that Dr. Cuddy had expressed interest in, and then invited Dr. House to share the space, Lucas apparently broke into the condo and did a number of rather unpleasant things."

"Such as?"

"From what I heard, he put a possum in the bathtub, loosened the safety bar in the bathtub - Dr. House hit his head when it broke loose from the wall as he attempted to get out of the tub - and set off the sprinklers, causing several thousand dollars' worth of damage to the condo and to Dr. Wilson and Dr. House's belongings."

"How did you hear about this? Did Dr. House tell you?"

"No. He didn't say anything, but it was all over the hospital after Lucas tripped Dr. House in the cafeteria, which also injured him, and then gloated about what he'd done. I guess Lucas felt threatened that Dr. Cuddy seemed more interested in House than in him, and he was staking out his territory. He was right, by the way. Dr. Cuddy broke up with Lucas the same day they got engaged, and began her relationship with Dr. House that night."

"What was Dr. House's reaction to this breaking and entering, assault and felony vandalism?"

"Again - at least as far as I know - he let it pass."

"Thank you, Dr. Taub. We will recall you if we have any other questions."


	8. Day 2, 3 pm Dr Musheer Chakravarti

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: One of my readers caught a mistake in the second part of Chase's testimony. I've since gone back and corrected it. During the Tritter arc, Wilson was _not_ involved when Cuddy reduced House's Vicodin so suddenly and drastically that he had gone into withdrawal._

**Day Two, 3 p.m.**

"State your name."

"Dr. Musheer Chakravarti."

"What was your connection to Dr. House?"

"I was his pain management specialist for a few months following his leg injury, and then occasionally after that."

"We understand you are not affiliated with Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in any way."

"That is correct. I work with Trenton Medical Center and Wilmington Memorial Hospital."

"Could you tell us why Dr. House would seek treatment outside the hospital where he was treated, and where he ultimately worked?"

"It was important for Dr. House to have a level of privacy about the treatment he was seeking. He did not care to have people he knew or worked with to know about his pain management regime."

"So did you report any of his treatment issues to Dr. Wilson, his primary care physician, or to Dr. Cuddy, his supervisor?"

"No, I did not. Dr. House specifically requested that none of his medical records leave my office. I honored that request."

"At what point following his injury did you begin to work with Dr. House?"

"I would say that it was about six months after his surgery."

"Is there a reason why you did not begin treating him immediately following his surgery?"

"Yes, there were several factors. First, he had initially attempted to work with a pain management specialist within Princeton-Plainsboro, but found that there were privacy issues connected with that decision. He discovered that people at the hospital who should have had no connection to his case were discussing his treatment, which I must say, was both unethical of them and annoying to Dr. House. In addition, he felt that the PPTH approach to his recovery was unsatisfactory to him. Finally, for a long while, he was not mobile enough to seek treatment elsewhere. He came to me only after he had recovered enough to be able to drive himself to our appointments."

"And that took six months?"

"He was barely mobile when he first started coming to see me, so I have to assume that prior to that time, he would have not been ambulatory at all."

"Do you know how he chose you as his pain management specialist?"

"Yes, I do. Dr. House had done considerable research into pain management, and, if I may be immodest about my own accomplishments, I have an extremely good reputation in the field. I believe at first Dr. House attempted to avoid seeing a pain management specialist altogether, but eventually felt that he really needed supervision and guidance as he began to recover. He wanted to work with the best person available to him. At least, that's what he told me. I'm flattered that he believed I was that person."

"Could you describe his condition when you first began seeing him?"

"As I said, he was barely able to get about, and his pain levels were topping eight or nine on the pain scale on a consistent basis. Breakthrough pain was even higher. As a consequence, he had lost a frightening amount of weight - he just couldn't keep any food down. Pain like that was completely unacceptable, putting a terrible strain on his other organs, particularly his heart, and he couldn't foresee spending the rest of his life experiencing those levels of pain. Plus, he really wanted to become as mobile and active as it was possible for him to become. I understand he was quite athletic before his injury."

"What were your initial concerns?"

"I was concerned with reducing his pain - which I have already described to you - and trying to improve his mobility."

"Was he employed at this time?"

"Not when I initially saw him, although he was offered the position at Princeton-Plainsboro about four months after I began treating him. He took the job about two months after that."

"Please give us your impression of how Dr. House's pain affected him when he first came to see you."

"He tended to avoid physical contact with other people as much as possible. This is not uncommon with someone who has been injured; he was afraid that someone might accidentally jostle his leg, leading to an acute pain reaction. He was also very closed off emotionally. Again, that's not unusual under these types of circumstances. Pain is both exhausting and distracting, so it took all of Dr. House's concentration just to do simple daily tasks."

"Such as?"

"Once a week, I had him fill out a pain questionnaire, describing his daily activity and how his pain affected what he was able to do… that way I had a clear idea of what was going on with him, and could monitor his progress. Even by the time he stopped seeing me regularly, it took a great deal of effort on his part to accomplish things that others can do without consideration. For example, just getting out of bed sometimes took him 10 or 15 minutes. Showers or baths were exhausting, as was dressing. It was also very difficult for him to take care of simple household chores, like shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. It was especially hard for him to do anything that required him to be on his feet for any length of time, such as cooking or shopping."

"How did he handle those tasks, then?"

"He worked around his limitations as much as he could. He eventually settled on a routine of ordering most of his food in and doing very little grocery shopping. He used online services for other types of shopping - clothing, electronics, household items, and so on. He stopped ironing altogether, and started using a laundry service that would pick up and deliver, and another for dry cleaning. Unfortunately, the laundry service didn't provide ironing services, which left him looking rumpled most of the time. As for housecleaning, he cleaned as little as he could reasonably get away with, and a few times a year, he would hire someone to come in and do a good, deep cleaning of his apartment. Sometimes being in pain means making trade-offs."

Dr. Chakravarti remembered the first time he saw Gregory House, how gaunt his face was, and how loosely his clothes hung on his tall frame. Pain had clouded the man's face, his brows furrowed in an almost constant grimace.

"Would you describe how you treated his pain?"

Chakravarti referred to a file folder he'd brought in with him. "Initially, Dr. House and I worked together to develop his treatment plan. He wanted it to be as noninvasive as possible, graduating to higher doses of medication or additional surgeries only if absolutely necessary. So I put him on an extensive physical therapy regimen to strengthen the remaining muscles and reduce the pressure on his injured thigh. He had physical therapy appointments with my team three times a week at the beginning, plus exercises for him to work on at home in between appointments. These helped enormously. He was barely functional on crutches when he first came to me, but within a couple of months, he was able to graduate to a pair of canes, and eventually to a single cane."

"That addresses his mobility issues. How about his pain?"

"The physical therapy helped that a great deal, as well, and so did electrical stimulation and massage, ice and heat packs, plus regular Jacuzzi treatments… moist heat really helped to loosen the tight muscles around his injury, taking pressure off the area and reducing his pain. Unfortunately, after some time, I became aware that I would have to tell him there was probably no safe way to completely eliminate his pain… or the limp he had developed. Even if we had been able to eliminate more of the pain in a way that was acceptable to Dr. House, there just wasn't enough muscle left to support him adequately." He remembered their conversation clearly.

_Chakravarti had requested that Greg meet with him following his physical therapy appointment that day. They met in his office, Greg sitting in his usual spot, his right leg propped up on an ottoman, an icepack still wrapped around his thigh, cooling the muscles inflamed from the workout. _

"_I need to talk to you about your prognosis," Chakravarti had begun, but before he'd been able to go any further, House had anticipated where the conversation was about to go. _

"_It's not good, is it?" he'd asked, appearing to hold his breath as he waited for what they both knew would be bad news. _

"_No, Greg, I'm afraid it isn't. There is only so far we can go with your pain management, unless someone develops a new treatment that isn't currently available. I can continue to help you - there is definitely room for improvement - but I don't know of anything that will make this go away without interfering with your clarity of thought."_

_He would never forget the look of overwhelming sorrow and disappointment that flitted swiftly across House's face, quickly replaced by a controlled mask of neutrality, nor his own dismay at letting the man down. Someday, he hoped, it might be possible to completely control pain like Greg's, even if the missing muscle mass could never be replaced, but until that time, his patient faced a lifetime of intense pain that would never cease._

"In addition to the physical therapy and the other methods you mentioned, how did you attempt to reduce his pain levels?"

"We experimented with a number of medications, but most of them, while easing the pain a bit, also left him in a fuzzy mental state, which he was not willing to accept. Eventually, we settled on a regular dose of hydrocodone, although he was concerned about the long-term effects on his liver. We also tried using a TENS unit, which offered some relief, especially during breakthrough pain episodes, and the occasional epidural or nerve block when the pain got out of control. For the times when the breakthrough pain could not be controlled in any other manner, I prescribed morphine self-injections."

"Did you trust him with such a powerful drug?" asked the man in charge of the panel.

"Yes, I did. I know later on Greg developed an unhealthy dependence on Vicodin, but I had no such concerns about the morphine. He was so adamantly opposed to taking anything that would cloud his judgment that I knew he wouldn't take the morphine unless the pain was so severe he felt he had no alternative. Before he took an injection, he agreed to contact me whenever the pain was that bad, just to keep me in the loop on what was happening with him."

"And how often did he call you?"

"Not often… maybe once every three or four months. I know he was tempted to use the morphine more often, but he was determined not to interfere with his thinking processes, so he was quite disciplined about it. I believe he even hid the morphine and syringes in a place that was difficult to access, just so he wouldn't be tempted to use it unless it was absolutely necessary."

"How confident were you that he wasn't using other drugs to self-medicate?"

"Reasonably certain, based on our interactions and the pain questionnaire he brought me every week. As I said, his primary concern was to keep his mind clear, and I don't believe he would have intentionally jeopardized that."

"Could you describe his mental state during all of this?"

"As is often the case with people who have become disabled and suffer from chronic pain, he was depressed and angry."

"Was there anything you could do to improve his emotional state?"

"Yes, there was, and, in fact, I referred him to a pain psychologist, whom he saw for several months."

"Did that seem to help him?"

"Over time, he appeared to come to terms with his limitations in a somewhat healthier way, so I would say that it did help him. I would have preferred for him to continue his appointments with the pain psychologist, but once he began working again, he found his job exhausting, plus it became impossible to find a way to fit appointments into his schedule. He continued to see me for his mobility and pain problems for a couple of months longer than that, although - possibly to protect his privacy or some scheduling conflict at Princeton-Plainsboro - he made most of his appointments either at night or on weekends."

"At what point did you stop seeing Dr. House… and was that your decision or his?"

"It was his. He felt he had progressed as far as he could, given the circumstances. I disagreed. I believed - and still believe - that there was more I might have been able to do to help him, but he was discouraged and eventually discontinued treatment."

"You mentioned that you saw him again later on. How did that come about?"

"At times, Dr. House's pain went through periods of being unmanageable, and then he would set up a few appointments, either to try to tweak his medications or for a refresher on his physical therapy. Occasionally, he would visit with me because he had read about a promising new treatment that he thought might help him."

"Did any of those promising treatments offer him relief?"

"They tended not to progress very far, even when promising."

"What do you mean?"

"In one case, he had gotten himself into a clinical trial in Boston that was activating the pleasure centers of the brain. Technically, it was for end-stage cancer patients, to deal with depression, but he felt - and I agreed - that it could be beneficial for a chronic pain patient as well."

"What happened in that situation?"

"I'm not totally sure. All I know is that it didn't work out for him, and he was pretty angry about it."

"You suggested that there were more potential treatments than just that one. Would you tell us what they were, and what happened?"

"At one point, he asked to be put into a Ketamine coma, which was extraordinarily successful until the Ketamine wore off. I had nothing to do with suggesting the Ketamine, by the way. Dr. House, who kept up on all the developments in the field, discovered the possible benefits of Ketamine himself after reading about it in an international journal."

"How did Dr. House react to the return of his pain after the Ketamine failed?"

"I didn't see him then, although he did call me a couple of times. I believe there were other complications happening in his life right then that were demanding his attention. I'm sure, though, based on my own experience with other patients and on studies that have been done, that he was probably very disappointed and depressed about his pain coming back. For many people, a situation like this can be even more difficult to cope with than their initial injury or illness. The sense of hope that life might actually return to normal is snuffed out, leaving the patient desolate. It was a shame, really. Ketamine does work permanently in many patients. He just didn't happen to be one of them."

"Any other treatments?"

"Other than the Ketamine, probably the most promising, although also the most dangerous, was when I switched him over from hyrodocone to methadone."

"How did that work out?"

"The methadone completely eliminated his pain. For a few days, he was almost giddy with relief."

"Why did he stop using the methadone?"

"I'm not sure of all the details, but I do know that he felt it interfered with his ability to think clearly, and, as I mentioned, that was something he wouldn't accept. For some reason, which he refused to elaborate on, Dr. Cuddy at Princeton-Plainsboro intruded on his treatment, apparently insisting that he stop using the methadone. I'm not sure, but I seem to recall that he actually quit his job over it for a brief while. I offered to intervene with her, but by then Dr. House had noticed that his mental processes were impaired, so he chose to abandon that treatment altogether."

"Over time, Dr. House apparently began experiencing difficulties with the hydrocodone. Were you aware of this?"

"Only after the fact. It's not unusual for narcotic pain medications to lose their effectiveness over time, and many patients increase their doses almost subconsciously, leading to serious problems with other aspects of their health. I hope that he would not be judged negatively because of this."

"Is there anything else you'd care to add?"

"Yes, a couple of things. At one point, after I had stopped seeing him, I noticed that he hadn't refilled his morphine prescription in quite some time, so I called him about it. I think he might have been grateful that I was paying attention, although it was not in his manner to express his feelings easily. He told me that, yes, it had run out, but that he had received a morphine injection from his boss, Dr. Cuddy, when things had gotten too painful for him to handle. I wrote him another prescription, and mailed it to him. A week or so later, I got a notice letting me know his prescription had been filled, so I assume he went back to the routine we had originally set up, with him using it only for extreme breakthrough pain."

Chakravarti paused for such a long time that the chairman noticed he hadn't continued.

"Dr. Chakravarti? Is there something wrong?"

"Well, I'm not sure," he replied, sounding perplexed. "Something just occurred to me… something odd. When we talked about renewing his morphine prescription, he mentioned something strange. He said he thought maybe the morphine Dr. Cuddy had used was not as powerful as what I'd prescribed for him… he told me it had worked only briefly, that it was not nearly as effective as what he was used to, and that then it wore off much more quickly. He seemed very concerned that his body might becoming acclimated to the drug, and that it was losing its effectiveness."

"Is that possible with morphine?"

Chakravarti thought it over. "As seldom as he took it… unless he was taking it more regularly than I'd thought - and I doubt that, because I know when his prescriptions were renewed - its efficacy should have been just the same as it had always been. He simply wasn't talking it often enough for it to become ineffective… and given his concerns about mental acuity, I doubt he would have taken it more often than he absolutely needed to. But then, once he filled the scrip I sent him, the ineffectiveness issue never came up again. I… I don't know. Something about it just doesn't sit right with me." With a puzzled look on his face, Chakravarti shrugged his shoulders.

"Thank you, Dr. Chakravarti. You said there were a couple of things you wished to mention. Is there anything else?"

"Yes," he said. "I do believe that people in chronic pain are often underestimated, or their impatience with day-to-day life is misunderstood. Until you have experienced the kind of pain Dr. House constantly lived with, you shouldn't judge his behavior. Chronic pain makes people short-tempered, standoffish, distracted… but they are coping the best way they know how. I'm quite sure Dr. House was doing his level best to remain productive and active. I've seldom had a patient who tried as hard as he did, or who insisted on being as involved as he was in his own treatment program."

"Thank you, Dr. Chakravarti. If we have any further questions, we will contact you. Adjourned until tomorrow morning at 9."


	9. Day 3, 9 am Dr Cate Milton

**Day Three, 9 a.m. - Wednesday**

"State your name for the record."

"Dr. Cate Milton."

"What is your specialty, Dr. Milton?"

"I am a psychiatrist."

"And what was your relation to Dr. House?"

"I was his patient. At the time, I was an employee of Princeton Plainsboro-Teaching Hospital, and was stationed at the South Pole."

"You have a unique perspective on Dr. House's methods and personality, Dr. Milton. We have the medical records from your case, so we don't need for you to summarize. What we would like to hear from you was your interpretation of how Dr. House interacted with patients, and what your impression of him was, from your vantage point as a psychiatrist."

"Well, let me start by saying that I will be forever grateful to Dr. House. Although the eventual solution to my case turned out to be a simple broken toe, I would have died without his ability to diagnose me."

"Understood."

"Also, please keep in mind that Dr. House diagnosed me long distance, via Skype."

"Again, understood."

"Okay. That said, I found Dr. House to be a fascinating man. He was witty, funny, sarcastic, troubled, angry, manipulative, provocative… and it goes without saying that he was incredibly intelligent. He worked on my case nonstop until he solved it, even contacting me from his laptop at home after he had left the hospital for the day."

"That sounds unusual for him. We were led to believe that Dr. House seldom interacted with patients."

"I suspect he had some ulterior motives - he was definitely flirting with me. I can't say how he normally behaved, but we were in nearly constant contact for several days, until he diagnosed and treated me." She remembered those days with great fondness, despite how desperately ill she was… she'd really enjoyed bantering with him.

"Would you say that Dr. House behaved professionally in his capacity as your physician?"

"It depends on your definition of professional."

"Could you explain?"

"Certainly. If by professional, you mean did he wear a white lab coat, take lots of notes and say 'Uh-huh' a lot, then no. If by professional, you mean was he dedicated to finding out what was wrong with me, was he tireless in that effort, then yes, by all means, he was professional."

"Would you describe some of your interactions with Dr. House?"

"Instead of going into detail about the specific interactions, may I give you an overview? Then, if you'd still like specifics, I'll be happy to provide them."

"That sounds reasonable."

"Dr. House and I really connected. Yes, as I said, he flirted rather outrageously - someone might even say crudely - but I saw that for what it was… a test."

"A test? A medical test?"

"No, a test of my character. He pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable to see how I would react. I suspect, based on my own practice, that if I had responded with shock or annoyance, or any kind of strong emotion, he would have continued to push those boundaries, just to see how far I would let him go. But because I calmly, but firmly, set limits for him right away - made sure he knew what I was willing to let him get away with, and what I wasn't, both medically and personally - and because I recognized what he was doing and simply accepted him - he settled down fairly quickly."

"You said that he was in contact with you after hours, from his home. Did you notice any difference in his behavior when you were in touch with him at work, as opposed to when he was at home?"

"I would have to say yes." She could still see his apartment, as reflected in the camera of his laptop, in her mind's eye. It was a place lined with bookcases, filled with interesting trinkets of one sort or another. Very masculine. And that bottle of booze. She'd taken a leap of faith on that one, but was not surprised to learn she was right - he did have insomnia, and he did take a drink (or so) before bed to try to help him sleep.

"What was different?"

"Where? At his home? There, Dr. House was more open."

"More open? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that when he was at home, he opened up to me emotionally, let me past some of those oh-so-high walls he'd constructed around himself."

"Such as…?"

"He carried his laptop around to show me his apartment, and mentioned that he had terrible insomnia… he couldn't sleep without taking a drink of whiskey. He even let me see the scar on his leg, something I assume he did not show to just anyone. That kind of thing."

"Anything more specific you care to share with us?"

Cate thought about it a moment before answering. "Yes, I guess it would be all right to share this with you as he wasn't my patient… I was his. At one point, he rather defensively asked me if I was intent on fixing him. I had the impression this was something he had heard fairly often throughout his life. I think I said, 'Who says you need fixing?'"

"And how did he react to that?"

"He seemed startled at first, but then was noticeably relieved. From that point forward, he behaved less offensively."

"So, as a psychiatrist, how would you describe the man?"

"If you don't mind, I'll finish my previous thought, which I believe will answer your question. What I _didn't _say to him is that I thought he was just fine the way he was… if people would just treat him as if he had value. That if people expected the worst from him, that's what he would give them, but that if they expected him to behave like an adult, and treated him with respect, he would live up to their expectations. I firmly believe that people live up - or down - to the expectations of others. If the people in Dr. House's life continually expected the worst of him, that's what he would give them. And I definitely had the impression that others expected the worst of him."

"What is your professional assessment of that?"

"It's a disgrace, really. There was a really sensitive, caring guy underneath that brusque surface. Too bad the people closest to him didn't seem to bother trying to get to know that guy."

"Is there anything else you'd like to add?"

"Just that I stayed in touch with Dr. House after my diagnosis. At first, he seemed almost shocked to hear from me, but we continued to talk via Skype, and eventually, the two of us became good friends. It might have become more, actually, but after I returned from the South Pole, I transferred to the LA Medical Center, so we were seldom in the same place at the same time."

"Thank you very much for your insight, Dr. Milton. We appreciate your willingness to fly out here from Los Angeles. That will be all. We'll take a brief break, and come back at 11 a.m."


	10. Day 3, 11 am Lydia Bohm

Day Three, 11 a.m.

"State your name for the record, please."

"Lydia Bohm."

"Thank you for traveling here to speak with us, Ms. Bohm. Dr. Darryl Nolan suggested we interview you. How did you know Dr. House?"

"I met him when he was a patient at Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital. My sister-in-law was also undergoing treatment there, and I visited as often as I could. Dr. House actually helped to cure her."

"Really? So, even though he was committed to Mayfield himself, he continued to diagnose people?"

"In her case, yes. He seemed so pleased when he took me to see her afterward."

"Was her condition medical, or strictly psychiatric?"

"Psychiatric, but Greg and another patient discovered the key to solving her problem."

"Admittedly, you met him under somewhat unusual conditions, Ms. Bohm, but could you give us your impression of Dr. House?"

"Yes, of course. It was obvious that he was suffering, or he wouldn't have been there. The man I got to know was a funny, sensitive man with a good heart."

"Interesting. That's not exactly how we've heard him described up until now. We've been told that he could be cold, unfeeling, manipulative and even nasty, although several of our witnesses have said they perceived something more positive beneath his sometimes unpleasant façade. You apparently saw a very different side to him altogether."

Lydia was surprised… shocked, actually… to hear how others interpreted the man she'd grown so close to. "I don't know…" she replied, tentatively, "…maybe I just saw him at a time when his defenses were down, or maybe I just got closer to him than others did. I never saw him once he was back in Princeton, so I can't compare. The man I got close to was a shy, cultured, sophisticated man, who got great mischievous glee in childish behavior. He sometimes acted in a vulgar way, but I really thought that was more for effect than because it was an inherent part of his personality."

"How often did you see Dr. House while he was at Mayfield?"

"I think I saw him almost every day. We first met when I was playing the piano in the common area. Actually, originally, I mistook him for one of the doctors, but then the orderlies came and escorted him to the quiet room because of some infraction, so that's when I realized he was a patient, not a doctor." She smiled, remembering how funny he'd been when the orderlies showed up to take him away. That was the moment she'd gotten intrigued enough to want to get to know him better.

"It wasn't until after I met him that I discovered patients weren't permitted to play that piano very often - it was actually kept locked up, and they had to ask for the key if they wanted to play. I didn't know that at the time, though. Whenever I arrived, I was given the key and played for Annie. Greg was such an excellent musician, and such a proud man, it must have been difficult for him to have to beg to be allowed to play the piano. I would think that being able to play when he wanted to might have been therapeutic for him. But then, I'm not a doctor."

"You said you were visiting your sister-in-law. If you were there to see her, how did you have time to get acquainted with Dr. House?"

"Annie… my best friend… had been catatonic for a very long time, about 10 years. I kept hoping that deep inside her somewhere, she might understand I had been to see her, so I kept coming. But because she didn't react to anything, it was relatively easy for me to find moments in which to get to know Greg."

"Do you know how long he had been at Mayfield when you first met?"

"I'm not sure. Not long, I think."

"What did the two of you talk about?"

"Sometimes, we talked about Annie, and sometimes we just talked in general. He didn't really tell me much about himself at first, but he opened up more later on."

"I would think you must have gotten to be fairly good friends with him, if Dr. Nolan suggested you come all the way across the country to testify here today."

To justify her trip back East to testify at the hearing, Lydia had lied to her husband, telling him she wanted to visit old friends from New Jersey, that she felt a little homesick for her old life. In a sense, that was true.

"Yes, you're right. I think we were very close. Sometime after we'd gotten to know each other a little bit, Dr. Nolan thought it might be good for Dr. House to learn to trust other people - I guess maybe he had been hurt in the past by people he had trusted - so he took Greg to a benefit for the hospital. I was attending the benefit, and the two of us…" Lydia pursed her lips to keep from giggling.

The panel chairman mistook her reaction for distress. "Ms. Bohm?" he asked, leaning forward, concern written on his face. "Are you all right?"

"Yes. I'm fine," she said, trying to muffle herself. "Sorry. It's just that we had so much fun that night, I can't help but laugh when I think about it. The whole thing was silly, really. We kept making up pretend scenarios about ourselves and play-acting those made-up stories for the other guests. Once, we pretended that he was my pimp. Another time I was the jealous wife and he was the philandering husband. It was so silly, but we had a wonderful evening. It was the most fun I'd had in a very long time." Lydia thought about her husband, Annie's brother, and how different he was from the Annie she'd known years earlier, how stodgy and settled he was, with no sense of whimsy or appreciation for the arts.

"So you'd say you really got to know him that night, when you were both pretending to be other people?"

"Yes, in a way. At the end of the evening, we talked quietly, just the two of us, for a long time. I don't know if that's what Dr. Nolan had in mind when he wanted Greg to learn to trust other people - I mean I don't think he intended Greg to trust _me_ in particular - but that was the end result." She thought about the warm kiss they shared at the end of the evening. It meant so very much to her, and she knew she was getting in over her head… but hadn't cared, because she'd been so attracted to him, and he'd made her feel more special than she had in a long time.

Then, sadly, she remembered the next time she saw him, when he pushed her away, clearly afraid of getting too close and getting hurt.

"You say the two of you got close?" asked the chairman, bringing her thoughts back to the present.

"Yes, yes, we did. We… well, we actually became romantically entangled. If I hadn't had children, I'm positive I would have left my husband for Greg. I… I hated it when my family decided to move away after Annie got better. I could tell I'd really hurt him. That was the last thing I wanted to do… especially when I knew he was in such a fragile state already." She'd always remember the last time she saw him, when he'd looked so distressed, so sad… standing all alone on her front porch as she reluctantly turned to go back inside to her family, the family she came close to leaving because of him.

"Weren't you concerned about getting involved with a mental patient?"

"No, not really. I think I am a good judge of character, and Greg had a good heart. He did some things that were very nice, that were well-intentioned, even though once, he created a bad problem for himself and one of the other patients. Even so, he meant well, I think. I don't know, but perhaps maybe no one had ever just let him be, you know?"

"I'm not sure I do know what you mean. Could you explain?"

"He was so afraid of being hurt, as I said, I knew he must have been hurt badly before. I had the feeling that in his past, when he had expressed that childlike part of himself or had allowed himself to feel optimism… it hadn't been appreciated. That's all I meant." And then she had hurt him, sending him away from her.

"Your description really does not sound like the same man we've already heard about in these proceedings."

"I can't say anything about that. All I know is that the Greg House I knew was a fascinating, broken man about whom I grew to care enormously."

"Is there anything else you can tell us about Dr. House?"

Lydia scanned her memories, and thought back to the night the two of them had made love. She nodded slowly. "Yes, there is one thing. I don't know if it will be helpful…"

"Why don't you let us decide that? Please go ahead."

"Okay. One night, he found me crying, and he immediately thought he'd made me cry because of a conversation we'd had earlier." The conversation where he'd been so terrified of where their relationship might be headed that he'd rejected her. "I remember he apologized. He said, 'I'm sorry I pushed you away. It's what I do when I'm afraid.' When I told him I wasn't crying because of how he'd behaved, but that I was feeling pathetic, he said, 'Well, then, I take the apology back. We're all pathetic. It's what makes life interesting.'"

A couple of the people on the panel smiled at this, including the chairman; another one, a woman, laughed aloud.

Undeterred by their reaction, Lydia continued, caught up in her memories. "When I told him I was tired of life being interesting, he reached out to me, and held me close in his arms and we danced together… no music, just the two of us swaying and giving each other comfort. It was a tender, sweet thing for him to do. So, as I said, I don't know how he was with anyone else, but with me, he was understanding and gentle… and so very vulnerable."

Of course that simple dance had led to a completely different kind of dance, but the fact that it had led to them having sex didn't take away from the tenderness of the moment. She'd never forget seeing that lone tear rolling down his cheek after they'd made love. Lydia found it very moving that he would be so desperate for a human connection that simply being with her could make him cry.

"Is there anything you would like to add before we call a recess?"

"I guess I would like to say that Greg was so hopeful when I knew him. He so very much wanted to have something positive in his life, and I think he saw his time at Mayfield as maybe his only chance to learn how to be happy."

"Thank you, Ms. Bohm, for coming all this way to give us your unique perspective. We'll adjourn for lunch and meet back here with our next witness at 1 p.m."


	11. Day Three, 1 pm Juan Alvarez

_Not quite sure what I'm doing that has given a couple of people the idea that I'm not showing House's negative traits enough. First off, I'm sticking almost exclusively with what was actually on the show, with only a few additional characters and moments to fill in gaps… but always based on what actually happened, or what was referred to or implied on the show. And second, when it fits in with a given character's testimony, I have mentioned his obnoxious, manipulative character, so I'm not trying to whitewash House's behavior. Third, each bit of testimony is strictly from the vantage point of the person testifying. For Lydia, for example, he didn't really show her those aspects of his personality, so her testimony would have been a positive one about him. She saw a more open, tender, gentle, silly side of him. I'm not making this up, people. It's right there in "Broken." All I'm doing is reporting it, shining a little light on it. Finally, maybe his being obnoxious is not the point of this particular story - none of you but me knows where this is going, or what the point of the inquiry actually is. _

_Sorry for the rant, but I have to say I'm confused by why these couple of anonymous (or fairly anonymous) reviewers feel the need to tell me House was a jerk, as if I hadn't figured that out. We all know he was a jerk. I'm not denying it, and I've repeatedly referred to it throughout. What seems to be far too easy to forget is that being a jerk is not everything that he was, and that other characters on the show were not always sweetness and light themselves. Is it possible he might have been less of a jerk, or less self-destructive, given slightly different circumstances? I don't know. Even characters who didn't like House (like Foreman) occasionally saw something good in him or had reason to appreciate him. If all he'd been was a jerk, believe me, I wouldn't have spent eight years watching the show. Hope you'll read this with an open mind._

_For the many, many of you who have posted such lovely, positive reviews and who seem to appreciate what I'm doing, please ignore the above. (By the way, I'm not averse to constructive criticism, but this particular type of negative comment totally baffles me. If I'm not telling the story well enough, that's one thing, but if it just doesn't match your world view, well, that's something altogether different.)_

_On to the next chapter._

**Day Three, 1 p.m.**

"State your name."

"Juan Alvarez, but you can call me Alvie."

"Okay, thanks, Alvie. You were a patient at Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital the same time as Dr. House, correct?"

"He was my roomie. Heezie was my room home house House mate." As Alvie played with the sound of the words he was saying, his overabundance of energy left him almost unable to sit still. Throughout his testimony, he fidgeted constantly.

"Did you and Dr. House become close?"

"House, not Doctor. House is in the house, get it?"

"Fine. Did you and House become close?"

"Yea. He was a good guy, but kinda angry at first. Fought back against the man, but got us those ping-pong paddles. For a long time, he wouldn't take his meds, kept cheeking them, but then I guess after Freedom Master jumped off the roof, he decided to stop scamming. He was my partner in the talent show. Saved that woman." House - Heezie, as Alvie preferred to call him - although House had told him not to - was a strange guy, always lying on his bunk reading, but Alvie had liked him immediately. Of course, Alvie had liked all of his previous roommates at Mayfield, even those who didn't like him back.

"Would that have been Annie Bohm, the cellist?"

"Yea, that's her. He was my buddy, House was. Helped me in the talent show. Oh, wait… I said that before. Got me wanting to get better. After he left, I started taking my meds. I've been good ever since. They say I'm still pretty hyper, but I guess that's just a part of me." Alvie's fingers beat a rhythmic tattoo on the desk in front of him.

"What was it about House that made you like him?"

"Oh, House… he was real smart, you know. And sneaky. Wanted to use the phone, but didn't have any privileges yet, so we worked out a way so he could use the phone." Alvie's sneaker-clad foot was now tapping out a rap on the floor.

"How was that?"

"We knew that anorexia dude had phone privileges. He was always tryin' to get Haldol, you know, so House and me, we faked a fight. He popped me one, and got them to give him Haldol. He cheeked it and I traded it with Haldol guy so House could use the phone."

"Do you know who he called?"

"Some friend of his… Wilson, I think he said. But the guy couldn't help spring him… never even came to visit, either. So maybe I was a better friend. I let him hit me - that's a pretty good friend, right?" Alvie couldn't say exactly why he'd liked House so much, but he still remembered when House finally got sprung, when his buddy House had teased him that everyone thought they were gay, but then wrapped him up in a big bear hug before smashing his face in the cake. It felt good, that hug, and he knew for sure that House was his friend.

"Yes, I would say that's a pretty good friend, Alvie. Did you stay in touch with Dr. House after you both left Mayfield?"

"Not at first, but at second, if you know what I mean."

"Not really. Please explain."

"After I got out, I went to visit him, painted his place. We hung out for a while before I moved to Arizona." Still a little nervous about immigration, he decided not to mention that he'd broken into House's place through an open window.

"What did the two of you do when you hung out?"

"Ate pizza. Played catch. Watched movies and monster trucks on TV. We went to thrift stores. I'd kinda sold some of his stuff to pay for paint, and he got a little bent about it, so we went and tracked it all down. Even that book - man, was he bent out of shape about that book!"

"What book was that?"

"Something about a cute abdomen. I got it back for him, though. Don't ask how." On some level, Alvie knew it wouldn't be too smart of him to admit he stole it from that jerk who had wound up with the book and wouldn't sell it back to House.

"Okay, I won't. What else did you do while you visited him?"

"Oh, let's see. I helped him with that woman who had no memory. At the donut shop."

"He let you work with him on a case?"

"Yeah, sorta. She was supposed to be a runner or something, and I just saw that donut shop, and I thought maybe they'd recognize her. If I'd been running, I'd want donuts. So we went in the donut shop, and they knew who she was."

"That's pretty clever. Did you ever visit his office?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't much to look at. I liked his apartment better, especially after I painted it. Chrome yellow mixed with ochre on the walls and magenta on the ceiling. He made me change it back to that boring drab crap. Not sure why, because he wasn't even living there. Worked out good for me, though. I got to sleep in his bed and not on the couch."

"So you'd say Dr. House was your friend?"

"Oh, yeah. House was a good guy. He even helped me stay in the country after I lost my birth certificate. Got the immigration people to let me stay. Good guy."

"How did he get the immigration people to let you stay in the country, Alvie?"

Suddenly, Alvie got cagey. He didn't want to explain that House had lied about the DNA. "Oh, you know. Doctor stuff." Ah. Now he had it. He'd tell part of the truth. "He told `em how he knew I was related to my mother, and so they had to let me stay. At first, I was really pissed off at him. I thought he'd screwed me over, but he hadn't. He made sure I could stay, that I wouldn't get deported. I like it here, and I was scared about getting deported, maybe to the Dominican, not even Puerto Rico. House… well, House was good that way."

"Did you stay in touch with him after you left New Jersey?"

"Sent him postcards, but he never wrote back. Guess he got busy… or maybe I forgot to give him my address. Yeah, I bet that's what happened. Next thing I know, he's on the news. Something must have gone really wrong. Couldn't see him driving his car into anyone's dining room. Not _my_ House."

"Okay, thanks, Mr. Alvarez - Alvie. We appreciate you taking the time to talk to us."

"Ouwwww! Anything for my man Housie!"

"Thanks, Mr. Alvarez… Alvie. That'll be all. Back at 3."


	12. Day 3, 3 pm Allison Cameron

_Thanks, everyone, for your comments and support. It's good to know that you recognize I'm trying something a little unusual here, and that you're with me on this journey._

-harp

**Day Three, 3 p.m.**

Allison Cameron entered the inquiry room after she was summoned. She approached the panel slowly, her head held high, a solemn expression on her face. She seated herself primly across from them, and waited.

"State your name."

"Dr. Allison Cameron."

"What is your current position, Dr. Cameron?"

"I'm the head of the ER at Chicago Presbyterian."

"Thank you for traveling to New Jersey to meet with us. You were one of Dr. House's fellows, correct?"

"Yes, I was." She swallowed the word _was._

"You were hired in 2004?"

"Yes, that's right. I was hired after Dr. Chase, but before Dr. Foreman." The first time she'd met House, at her job interview, she'd been petrified. It was unlike any other job interview she'd ever had. A couple of days before, she had gotten her hair trimmed, deciding at the last minute to dye it brown, afraid if it stayed blonde, he'd think she was dumb. The morning of the interview, she'd carefully dressed in her best suit, trying to look both attractive and professional… emphasis on the professional.

Before she'd sent him her résumé, she had already heard about the infamous Dr. House's reputation - both good and bad – and, of course, as she sat across the desk from him, he immediately honed in on her insecurities about her skill and intellect. Then he'd made crude jokes about her flat figure, and had openly leered at her. When she answered his questions, she was sure he could hear the nervous quiver in her voice. Compulsively, she had tapped her right big toe inside her shoe, hoping her nerves would be redirected there and that he wouldn't notice how scared she was.

Cameron wanted this fellowship so desperately - in fact, she'd never wanted anything so much before in her entire life - but she left the interview positive that House would never hire her, that he thought she wasn't determined enough, or smart enough, or that she was just trading on her looks. She wasn't averse to using her appearance to help her, but she also wanted to be taken seriously. Later on, of course, once she had the job, she realized he made fun of everyone on the team, usually in as insultingly un-politically correct way he could, trying to see if he could shock them… and since she was so easily shocked in those days, she was teased most often.

Maybe she was a little slow on the uptake, but years after the fact, by which time she'd already moved on, both personally and professionally, she finally figured out that he never would have hired her if he hadn't thought her skill as a doctor brought something useful to the table. And it eventually dawned on her as well that maybe the reason he so often tried to distract his fellows and throw them off their game was to give them practice at staying focused when a patient's life was at stake. His methods might have been unorthodox, and God knows he could be offensive, disgusting and even abusive at times, but it was effective. They'd learned how to stick with the task at hand, no matter what was happening around them.

"Could you give us your impression of working for Dr. House at that time?"

She smiled, picturing those early days, the long hours doing nothing, sitting there waiting for something, anything, to happen that would justify their presence. "I think the word 'working' is an overstatement… at least at the beginning."

"What do you mean?"

"Dr. House seemed to spend more time avoiding work than actually working on cases. We - Dr. Chase and I, and later on, Dr. Foreman - spent a lot of time doing crossword puzzles and reading journals."

"How did you respond to this forced inactivity?"

"We didn't care much for it, frankly, but we were being paid. I later came to realize that Dr. House was still recovering from the physical and emotional after-effects of his leg injury, and it was pretty much all he could do just to show up. But we didn't know that at the time. He was always pretty good at hiding personal things."

"What ultimately changed?"

"Dr. Cuddy really pushed him. Unfortunately, she also pushed him to spent more time in the clinic."

"Why do you say 'unfortunately'?"

"I felt his talents were wasted down there, although every so often he would find a case for us among the clinic patients. I guess, it wasn't all bad, though, because by forcing him to do clinic duty, Dr. Cuddy probably helped get him motivated to take on more diagnostic cases… if only to avoid the clinic."

"How did you and Dr. House get along? Along the lines of what you were just telling us, we have been led to understand he could sometimes be difficult."

"Oh, I can't be very objective about that. I had a terrific crush on the man for a long time… a very long time, in fact. I saw him as a tragic, romantic figure, and kept trying to be more to him than just an employee. It's actually kind of embarrassing to talk about now." She blushed, remembering that mortifying dinner when he had nailed her emotionally, refusing to play the dating game, but insisting - as only House could - on giving her painful pinpoint laser insight into her own motivations.

"That's understandable. Let me rephrase: How did Dr. House treat you professionally?"

"Oh, the usual: He teased me, mocked me, prodded me, and forced me to use parts of my mind I hadn't even known existed." Of course, during that whole brain cancer scam, she had kissed him, thinking, with a distinct lack of rationality, that she somehow had the allure to be able to distract him enough to sneak a blood sample while his lips were otherwise occupied. How stupid she'd been! What had made her think she could actually extract a vial of blood without him either noticing or overpowering her?

"How did he tease you?"

"In my case, I was a young, naive, soft-hearted kid, really, and he seemed determined to make me grow up... and he did."

"Would you say that you changed during the time you worked for Dr. House?"

"Absolutely. I needed to hear what he had to say. I was far too idealistic in those days. I wore my heart on my sleeve, and I drove him crazy by constantly worrying about how he was feeling."

"So he didn't appreciate your concern?"

"Oh, God, no! The real problem was that I constantly drifted away from the medical cases to express my concern for him… always asking if he was in pain… that sort of thing… and that was the last thing he wanted. He didn't want a fuss made, and he especially didn't want pity."

"How did he react when you asked how he was feeling?"

"It varied," she said, catching herself before she rolled her eyes thinking about some of the horrible things he'd said to her. "Sometimes he made fun of me, sometimes he ignored me, sometimes he changed the subject, but most often he simply yelled at me to do my job. It's embarrassing to admit now, but he was right. I wasn't being paid to make goo-goo eyes at him or play nursemaid. I was there to do what he'd hired me to do, which was to use my brain to save a patient's life. Under the circumstances, I suppose I should consider myself lucky he didn't fire me." _And why hadn't he?_ she suddenly wondered.

"Would you say he taught you to toughen up?"

"I guess so, although I never really lost my ability to empathize with people - it's actually served me well in the ER I run in Chicago - but I no longer try to avoid the harsh realities of life. I owe that to Dr. House."

"Could you give us an example of how he helped you to confront the 'harsh realities of life'?"

What immediately came to mind was something she didn't feel comfortable disclosing… when she had euthanized Ezra Powell. That whole case had challenged her then-simplistic views of right and wrong. Here was a man who had done terrible things in order to have a positive outcome, and here was a situation where the only time House had ever said he was proud of her was when she'd killed that same man, but for good reasons. She'd always wondered if she'd been willing to euthanize Powell only because she'd been so disgusted by the work he'd done. If he'd been someone blameless, would she have had the compassion to ease him out of life? And hadn't she ultimately done exactly what Ezra Powell had - committed an unspeakable act because the end result was a good one?

In retrospect, given that situation, she wished she could have been a little less judgmental when Robert had done the same thing, but with vastly different motives. It was all overwhelming and confusing… but damn, if it hadn't helped her grow up. Cameron decided she must be one of those people destined to learn her lessons the hard way.

Instead, she went with: "Sure. At one point, I wanted feedback from him on a journal article I had written about one of our cases. I should have been bright enough to realize, when I hadn't heard back from him about it after awhile, that he hadn't even read it. But I waited patiently, like a good little girl, and then felt blindsided when Dr. Foreman wrote up the same case and got his version published. I felt Foreman had plagiarized me - to be honest, I still feel that way to some extent - but Dr. House had no sympathy. He wanted me to get to the point where I had enough confidence that I would believe in myself, behave professionally and stand up for what I thought was right without needing Daddy's approval."

She'd never forget how shocked and angry she'd been when Foreman's article appeared in print. She was furious with him, and none too happy with House, because she felt he should have read her article, thereby giving her the opportunity to get her version published first. It took her a long while to get over the whole situation, to give up her resentment, to get perspective on it.

"And this was helpful to you?"

She nodded. "Yes. It was painful… extremely painful, actually… but it was a great learning moment for me, when I had to face the fact that colleagues aren't necessarily friends. I learned to stand up for myself and also to watch my back. Invaluable."

"Somewhere in our notes, we found a reference to you opening and answering Dr. House's mail, writing up his notes, and submitting records for insurance reimbursement. Is that correct?"

"Yes, it is."

"Didn't you find that demeaning, sexist?"

"On some level, probably. I knew he had asked me to do it because he saw it as 'women's work.'"

"And that didn't bother you?"

"Thinking back on it, knowing what I now know, I'm pretty sure he did it to see if I'd refuse to fit into that stereotypical role. Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to see that at the time, so I just kept doing it."

"Do you mind sharing the nature of the mail he received?"

"Certainly. Every week, he would get dozens of requests for consultations, articles, speaking engagements and pleas from prospective patients hoping he would take their cases."

"How did he react to those requests?"

"He took a few of the consultations, ignored the speaking engagements and accepted only a handful of the cases… the most interesting ones. Every so often, he'd write an article." At first, she had pleaded with him to write responses to every letter, to take on those speaking engagements and consultations, agree to write the articles, or at the very least to turn down cases he didn't want to be bothered with. Later on, when it had _finally _hit her that he would never respond on his own, she'd simply written back to each and every letter, and signed his name. That's how she'd learned to forge his signature. Shaking her head slightly, she thought about how naïve she'd been - a doctor who had allowed herself to get turned into a secretary. She couldn't even blame House for it; she'd done it to herself. And why would he turn down free secretarial help if she was willing to do it for him?

"Could you spend a moment to tell us about how Dr. House and Dr. Cuddy interacted?"

Refocusing her attention, she replied, "Certainly. What would you like to know?"

"What was your impression of Dr. Cuddy's management style?"

Cameron pursed her lips. "It seems kind of ironic now, given what happened between her and Dr. House, but at one point - after Dr. Chase and I first got involved - she lectured me about how inappropriate it was to be in a relationship with a co-worker. She said that she had no intention of talking to Robert about the situation… that if the relationship caused a problem at work, she would have to let one of us go… and that one would be me."

The man sitting across the long table from her seemed genuinely startled, and Cameron noticed, out of the corner of her eye, that other panel members were taking notes. "Really? That seems a bit, well, sexist."

"I think it was, actually. I got fairly defensive about it. Now that I run my own department, I think that if I were faced with a similar situation, I would be a lot more concerned about whether or not the people involved were neglecting their duties than in whether they were involved at all. And, let me add, for the record, Dr. Chase and I were, indeed, neglecting our duties and should have been called to task for that, but I don't believe either of us should have been fired over it - just reprimanded."

"You've given us an example of Dr. Cuddy's management of you personally. But what we'd really like to know is if there anything else you would like to add about her management of Dr. House?"

"That's not an easy question to answer. She always insisted that she was the only one who really knew how to manage him. That may have been true. I filled in for her for one day after she got her daughter, and I found it quite hard. I really believed I couldn't be objective about House… that, in fact, most people would find it hard to be objective about him."

"In what ways would they find it hard to be objective?"

"In my case, because I had worked for him, I was concerned that I might approve procedures that I shouldn't, just because I knew how often he was right… and I felt that most other people would deny procedures and treatments he asked for, just because his personality rubbed them the wrong way. Dr. Cuddy seemed, for the most part, to be able to approve what was really essential, and deny him permission for things that weren't."

"Is there anything else you'd like to add to your testimony, Dr. Cameron?"

Cameron considered the question for a moment. "Yes, actually, there is. I've had a people ask me how I can go from the excitement of working for Dr. House in running an ER - didn't I find that a step down, and didn't I miss the thrill of diagnostics? The answer is, that no, I don't find it a step down. It's more hands on than what I did for Dr. House, and the pressure to stay on top of the unexpected is a different kind of stress, but my background in diagnostics has regularly been invaluable."

"In what ways?"

"I would say that several times a year, I've had a patient come through the ER who is, as Dr. House used to put it, a zebra not a horse. If I hadn't been trained by him to diagnose the unusual, it's probable that those people would have died. But I notice things other doctors don't, just because I had those years with Dr. House, and as a result, I can help people who otherwise would slip through the cracks of our medical system. I wouldn't trade that knowledge for anything."

"That's a very interesting analysis, Dr. Cameron. Thank you so much for coming all this way, and for taking the time to talk to us today."

"You're quite welcome."

As Cameron got up and headed toward the door, she heard the panel chair address the rest of the panel, saying, "That's it for now, folks. See you bright and early tomorrow morning at nine."


	13. Day 4, 9 am Dr Marvin Elliott

**Day Four, 9 a.m. - Thursday**

"State your name, please, for the record."

"Professor Marvin Elliott."

Marvin Elliott looked like the stereotype of a professor. He was slightly overweight, with a bit of a paunch. Long, white hair badly in need of a good cut and a careful brushing framed his face, his clothes were vaguely rumpled, and he wore a pair of bifocals, not anywhere close to the current style, perched precariously on his nose. Behind those glasses were sharp, intelligent hazel eyes.

"What was your connection to Gregory House?"

Elliot spoke in a deep baritone. "Before I retired from teaching," he said, "I taught infectious diseases at Hopkins. Greg was one of my students, and I was also his academic advisor."

"Would you describe Gregory House as student?"

Elliott thought back to the first time he met Greg House. The lad was gangly… kind of goofy-looking, actually… and was never at rest. He moved, thought and talked at warp speed, questioning everything and everyone. "He was easily the most dazzling, most brilliant student I ever had, in 45 years of teaching," said Elliott, "not to mention the most challenging."

That first time he met the young man, they got into an heated discussion that lasted two hours, arguing different aspects of van den Hengel's coalescent theory of infectious diseases. Then, once they'd settled things to their mutual satisfaction, House had expressed very definite ideas about what he intended to study and which professors whose courses he chose to take, regardless of what was required, and despite the fact that he had already been expelled from the University of Michigan and didn't really have any bargaining chips. Elliott smiled.

"In what ways was he challenging?"

"Greg was so very bright, I could barely keep up with him. Sometimes, I spent hours studying topics myself so that I could be prepared for any questions he might have. He absorbed knowledge like a sponge. I suppose I should also mention that he was a troubled young man, but so brilliant that I felt his promise easily outweighed the problems he created."

"What kinds of problems were those?"

"He was an iconoclast, defied authority, broke rules, and got bored easily with the mundane. When he was bored, he often got into trouble… not an uncommon occurrence among truly brilliant people, I might add."

"What kind of trouble are you talking about here, Dr. Elliott?"

"The usual college-level pranks - he played practical jokes on other students - silly stuff really, occasionally came to class hung-over, incited other students to join him in some crazy endeavor. I remember once catching him with a girl in one of the classrooms after hours. But usually, it was things like constructing elaborate Rube Goldberg-type machines that would take over a classroom or lab, so that when the students came in, their way was blocked by all the tubes and pipes and Bunsen burners and motorized equipment that he'd used, and we'd spend the first part of class dismantling his contraption. Not all of the professors appreciated it."

The panel seemed amused. "What did these gadgets do, if anything?"

"Oh, they always did something. Not usually anything of consequence, but they always did something. There was one that was a maze of assorted pieces strung all over the lab, right up to the ceiling; once set in motion, it brewed a cup of coffee over a Bunsen burner and delivered it to him at his lab table. Tedium became a real difficulty, and it was a real task to keep him busy enough to stay out of trouble."

With some amusement, Elliott noticed several of the panel members suppressing smirks.

"Did he exhibit any self-destructive tendencies during the time you knew him at Hopkins?"

Elliott sighed and stroked his chin a moment. "Not directly, I don't think," he replied. "Not like other past students of mine, who got in trouble with the law for drugs or reckless driving, or what have you. But he certainly seemed willing to push everyone around him right up to their limit, almost as if he felt compelled to find out just how far he could go. Sometimes that involved stepping over the line of university rules and regulations, so he spent a fair amount of time in my office getting lectured by me to straighten up and fly right."

"And did he? Straighten up and fly right?"

"Oh, he would stick with the letter of the law, as it were, so he seldom did the same thing twice. If he were admonished for a specific thing, he would take that very literally, and he would never do that exact thing again. He'd do something different that was just a troublesome. Greg tended to get himself in hot water fairly often, and he also alienated many faculty members because of his directness and sarcasm. Again, I believe that some of that might have been an offshoot of his boredom. He reasoned things through so quickly that his high-powered brain just had nowhere else to go, and he quite simply had no patience for…" Elliott switched gears. "Wait, let me amend this thought. Greg enjoyed the company of people considerably less bright than himself. What he couldn't, or wouldn't, tolerate were people who were pompous or self-important. He seemed to be on a one-man mission to puncture their pretentiousness. "

"How did these issues affect his studies?"

"He refused to suck up to authority figures, even going so far as to tell off some of our more pedantic faculty members when he thought they were wrong. He had absolutely no use for what he perceived as meaningless rules or departmental politics. On occasion, this behavior was reflected, not in his understanding of a given subject, but in how a professor treated him or even graded him."

"I gather you are not including yourself among these professors."

"No, not at all. Greg was the kind of student one dreams of, someone who could go on to do great things. And although he argued with me occasionally - well, more than occasionally - I didn't have any concerns about that, because our debates were thought-provoking and because his overall talent was so immense. I should mention that his antics settled down once he started that band. Or maybe he just took that excess energy off campus."

"Did he ever talk to you about how he came to be expelled from Michigan?"

"Oh, yes. Oh, yes, indeed." Elliott smiled. He remembered the moment well. "It was in one of our first conversations. I didn't even have to ask him about it; he volunteered the information."

"What did he tell you?"

"As I said, when he was bored, Greg could get himself in trouble faster than anyone else I've ever seen. And apparently, he was bored in one of his classes at Michigan, so he set up a little experiment to see if the teacher was grading him according to his ability or according to his reputation. Unfortunately, that experiment involved cheating off of another student's paper. He wanted to know if his grades would be just as high if he used the answers put down by a lesser student. So he sat himself down next to one of the worst students in the class… and got caught cheating. It was idiotic of him, really. And it may be the only case in history where a student purposely cheated off of someone worse than himself, in order to see if he would get the lower grade he deserved for the answers being submitted."

"I understand that Dr. House had a double specialty, in infectious diseases and nephrology. Was it common at Hopkins for prospective doctors to do a double specialty?"

"No, not particularly. Greg breezed through it easily. As I said, he was, quite simply, brilliant. And, from what I've heard, he didn't do a lot of studying. He did, however, read far beyond the requirements for a given course, spending hours in the library, studying up on any topic that had caught his interest."

"Did Dr. House ever tell you why he chose to pursue a career in medicine?"

"Yes, actually, he did. He was inspired by someone he saw when he was a child living in Japan."

"Really? How interesting. Could you elaborate, please?"

"All I know is that a friend of his got injured, and Greg took him to a nearby hospital. While he was there, he noticed a janitor - a _buraku_ - that's a member of Japan's invisible race. I think Greg called the man an untouchable. I can't remember his exact words, of course, not after all these years. But he told me the man had an amazing medical gift, and when the doctors at that hospital were stumped, they had to turn to the _buraku_ for help, even though he was of a supposedly inferior class. He found this fascinating."

"Indeed it is. So he told you he was inspired by this untouchable who had the ability to do what other doctors couldn't?"

"I think he was more than inspired. I always suspected, from what I heard of Greg's later career, that he actually patterned himself on that man. He saw himself as an outsider, but an outsider who could do what others couldn't." Elliott saw a couple of the panel members taking notes.

"Did you stay in touch with him after he got his medical degree?"

"Yes, although not as often as I might have liked. Whenever he had an article ready for publication, he would send it to me for review first. Occasionally, he might call me for a consult, and I followed his career closely, if at a distance. He had such a magnificent brain. I believe he could have done anything he put his mind to."

"Not just medicine?"

"No, his interests were catholic - he was fascinated by everything, and had seemingly limitless talent. He was involved in sports, music - I believe he put himself through medical school by playing in that band I mentioned before. Whenever we had an appointment, I tended to notice which books he carried with him, because it was always surprising. In addition to the obvious medical texts, he had classic adventure novels - I think Rudyard Kipling and Jack London were favorites of his - astronomy, physics, religion, even music books. One day, I was a little late for an appointment with him, and when I got there, I found him sitting on the floor outside my office, tapping away on his notebook as if it were a piano keyboard, and then writing down a melody and chords in a staff book.

"And languages - oh, God, he was keen on learning languages! When I asked him about it, he said that you never knew when there might be a medical breakthrough in another country, and if you waited until it was confirmed by an English-language journal, someone's life might be lost. Of course, he recognized that what he was suggesting was the use of drugs not yet approved for that particular use in the U.S. I understand he did exactly that later on in his career - prescribed drugs not normally intended for that usage."

"May I ask which languages he studied, Dr. Elliott?"

"Certainly. When I first met him, he was already fluent in Japanese, Egyptian Arabic, Hindustani - the Haryvani dialect – Russian, Chinese and the usual German, French and Italian, plus Latin and Greek. At some point, I became aware that he was teaching himself Portuguese and Swahili."

"Sounds like a fascinating young man."

"Oh, he was. I was enormously proud of the work he did, creating the first-ever department of diagnostics and developing an unparalleled international reputation."

Prof. Elliott had often wondered what would have happened to House if someone else had been assigned his advisor, one of those pedantic professors he was so keen to piss off… would he have accomplished as much? Elliott chose to believe that he'd had a share in Greg's professional success, and he wished in retrospect that he'd paid closer attention to the emotional issues that clearly troubled his star student. If he had, maybe there might have been a way to head off the personal demons that plagued his most brilliant pupil. Whenever he thought of Greg House - or when he read about either his achievements or his catastrophes - he always had mixed feelings - enormous pride mingled with sorrow and regret.

"Were you aware of the injury to his leg?"

"Not at the time, no, and not directly from him - I found out about it from colleagues. Some of the professors with whom he'd had heated interchanges at Hopkins seemed to feel that it was karma, that he was getting what he deserved. I, on the other hand, saw it as a tragedy. From what I heard over the years, it changed him in some ways… brought out the worst parts of his character. Perhaps if I hadn't been so blinded by his brilliance, I could have helped him more."

"Is there anything else you'd like to add?"

"No. I believe that covers everything."

"Break. Back at 11 with our next witness."**  
**


	14. Day 4, 11 am Henry Dobson

**Day Four, 11 a.m.**

The older man slid into the seat opposite the panel. He looked troubled.

"State your name for the record."

"Henry Dobson."

"Could you tell us how you knew Dr. House?"

"Certainly. I applied for a fellowship with Dr. House in 2006."

"You interviewed?"

"Not exactly. Dr. House felt that traditional interviews were not a sufficient way for him to choose a team to work with, so he brought in 40 of us and then whittled the group down. I made it into the top 10."

"That's an unusual hiring technique."

"It was indeed, especially because Dr. House approached the whole process as if it were a reality TV show."

"Really? How did that work?"

"He gave us both medical and nonmedical tasks - some mundane, others not - and watched to see what we would do, and how we would approach any given situation. It was surprisingly effective."

"But you were not ultimately chosen to be on Dr. House's team?"

"No, I was not."

"You don't seem to hold any resentment about that. Could you explain why?"

"To be honest, I had never really expected to get chosen. I had hoped I would, of course, but the odds were against me."

"Because of your age? Were you discriminated against because of your age?"

Dobson shook his head, a sly smile crossing his face, his eyes twinkling. "No, not at all. The fact that I was able to stay in the game, as it were, up until the end, should make it pretty clear that House seriously considered me for his team. We actually thought very similarly, which, in an odd sort of way, worked against me. He was looking for people with different perspectives from his own, who might think of things he hadn't considered. In addition, I didn't have a medical degree yet, so it would have been very difficult for Dr. House to hire me. He actually kept me on for a couple of weeks after he figured out that I didn't have an M.D. after my name." Dobson's smile morphed into a grin. "He even gave me an affectionate nickname - he called me Ridiculously Old Fraud."

A couple of the panel members smiled at this.

"You said you didn't have a medical degree _yet_. Do you now?"

"Yes. Thanks to Greg. He encouraged me to finish up my studies and get the degree I had always wanted. I now have my own practice, and I'm on staff at Maplewood General."

"Did this encouragement happen while you were still in the application process?"

"It began there, but it was really after he fired me that our friendship bloomed."

"Friendship? You considered Dr. House a friend? Even after he fired you?"

"Yes. I knew he'd have to let me go, so I didn't hold it against him. I liked Greg enormously. He amused me… he was smart and clever, and infinitely loyal. In fact, I became part of his weekly poker game starting right after he fired me."

Dobson remembered the not unexpected moment when House had informed him, sadly it had seemed, that he hadn't made the cut, followed almost immediately by the semi-serious suggestion that Dobson become House's assistant. It was apparent that House hadn't wanted to lose him from the team, but felt there was no other choice under the circumstances. "I'll miss you most of all," he'd said, quoting Dorothy's line to the Scarecrow at the end of _The Wizard of Oz_.

At the tail end of that same day, after all the remaining applicants had left the hospital, Henry had shown up unannounced in House's office. Clearly surprised, House had asked if he'd changed his mind about becoming the departmental amanuensis. "No," he'd replied, reaching out across the desk to shake House's hand, and then starting to withdraw it, not sure if House would return the gesture. To his surprise, House had clasped his hand warmly. "But I've enjoyed this, and I appreciate the opportunity you've given me to get this far. Just wanted to say thanks."

House gave him a shrewd look, and then asked what Henry was doing Thursday night. That very week he'd joined the poker game, getting introduced to dry cleaner guy and the others as - not unexpectedly - Ridiculously Old Fraud. House was a cunning, if occasionally reckless, poker player, but he often won the pot, so Henry couldn't help but wonder how much of the recklessness was part of his strategy. Henry had spent many a happy evening drinking excellent whiskey, eating pizza and playing poker at House's apartment, an apartment that seemed to suit him well.

Among his poker buddies, House was more relaxed and often much funnier than he had been at work. Occasionally, he'd sit out a game and hobble over to the piano… or he'd grab a guitar from the wall… and entertain the rest of them with an eclectic mix of musical styles that might include anything from jazz to blues to country to Norwegian folk songs to old hymns to classical, depending on his mood and how well he'd been doing at cards.

Every so often, during a tough case, Henry would get a call from House asking his opinion. He was flattered and never hesitated to speak his mind. And then, as time went on, House began to push him to get his medical degree, even going so far as to schedule study sessions together, where he'd quiz Dobson relentlessly before an exam.

One of the proudest moments of Dobson's life was the day he graduated from medical school. As he left the stage, diploma in hand, he saw, to his astonishment, Greg House sitting in the third row on the aisle. They locked eyes for a moment, and Dobson could have sworn he saw pride on the younger doctor's face. Then House had given Henry a slight nod of approval. Afterward, at the reception, House approached him and, typically, said, "So, I guess I can't call you Ridiculously Old Fraud anymore, can I… _Doctor _Dobson?" And then he'd smiled a genuine, if rare, smile, again shaking his hand.

A week later, when he picked up his mail, Dobson found a letter with the return address of 221b Baker Street in Princeton. House had written him a glowing, if sardonic, letter of recommendation that enabled him to get a prestigious residency.

Since then, he'd followed the ups and downs - mostly downs - of House's life, checking in whenever he had the time, trying to be a steadying influence on his self-destructive friend. When House was at Mayfield, and again later, when he was in prison, Dobson had attempted to visit, but House had refused to grant him access. It was pretty clear to Henry that House hadn't wanted to be seen like that.

"Is there anything you would like to say about Dr. House?"

Dobson scratched his chin, looking down a moment before returning his gaze to meet that of the panel chair. "I think a lot of people underestimated Greg. I saw how others reacted to him - it was almost as if he went out of his way to get a rise out of people - but when I simply accepted him for who he was, and it must have been apparent that I did like him very much, he never played those kinds of games with me again. I feel privileged that he allowed me to see past the defenses he built up. In many ways, he was a wonderful guy, and I think what happened to him should never have happened."

"What do you mean?"

Dobson scratched his chin again. "I would like to think that if his other so-called friends had just bothered to dig a little deeper, if they had been more supportive and less critical, he might not have continued on that downward spiral. He so wanted to be accepted for who he was, and I think he put up that insane front to see if anyone would bother looking past it. Unfortunately, very few did. I was one of the lucky ones."

"Thank you, Dr. Dobson, for your time. This has been enlightening. We'll stop for lunch and then come back at 1."


	15. Day 4, 1 pm Dr Helen Martin

**Day Four, 1 p.m.**

"State your name."

"Dr. Helen Martin."

"What are your professional credentials, Dr. Martin?"

"I am a senior physician at the National Institutes of Health."

A petite, pencil-thin woman of African-American and Chinese descent, with her hair pulled back in a tight bun, Helen Martin more resembled an old-fashioned schoolteacher than a highly regarded physician.

"And what was your relation to Dr. House?"

"I was the first person hired as one of Dr. House's fellows. Quite an honor, I must say." Dr. Martin remembered feeling almost overwhelmed when she learned she'd gotten the fellowship, beating out more than 100 other applicants.

"How would you describe your fellowship?"

"When Dr. House took a case, it was thrilling to be in the presence of such a remarkable medical mind." Not knowing what to expect, she had arrived on her first day 35 minutes early and ready to work. It took her awhile to figure out that Dr. House was often one or two hours late, and that the work - at least at first - would be scarce.

"You say 'when Dr. House took a case.' Did that not happen very often?"

"No. The department was a new one, and Dr. House was still recuperating from his leg injury. The pain made it very difficult for him to concentrate. Plus, if I may be blunt, he seemed to be suffering from a rather severe depression about the loss of his mobility and the changes in his life as a result of the extreme pain he experienced. As I understand it, he had been quite athletic prior to his injury. He didn't take many cases."

In those early days, there were times when it was obvious that House was barely functional. She couldn't help but notice the lines of pain etching themselves irrevocably onto her employer's face, or the grimaces and repressed groans every time he moved, even slightly. For the most part, throughout her fellowship, House stayed seated behind his desk, his leg propped up on the top of the desk with a pillow underneath. She became accustomed to sitting across the desk from him as they brainstormed, using yellow legal pads to sort out the differential diagnoses. It wasn't until the end of her tenure that the whiteboard was introduced, and then only because House had improved enough to be able to stand for short periods of time, and because the addition of two more fellows made it necessary to move their brainstorming sessions into the larger conference room.

"How long did you work for Dr. House before other fellows were hired?"

"More than a year. As he began to come out of his shell, and we took on more cases, he added two others, Dr. Hiram Bialik and then, about a year and a half after that, right at the end of my time, Dr. Robert Chase. Dr. Bialik, unfortunately, died a couple of years back, ironically from an undiagnosed rare condition - just the kind of thing Dr. House relished solving. But the two of them never got along, and Dr. Bialik - who had a robust ego - refused to consult with Dr. House. It was a shame, really. I encouraged him to seek out Dr. House, but he refused. I even went so far as to talk to Dr. House privately about it. He, of course, came up with the correct diagnosis, but by then it was too late."

"Very sorry to hear that, Dr. Martin."

"It was too bad. Dr. Bialik was a good doctor, but he was also a blithering idiot."

"Is there anything else you can tell us about what it was like working for Dr. House at the time?"

"Yes, there are several things I would like to include in the record. First, Dr. House, when he took a case, was relentless in his determination to find the answer to a patient's problem."

"Could you give us an example?"

"Absolutely. We had one patient named Esther, an older woman, who died before we could solve her case. That failure really preyed on Dr. House, and he just couldn't let it go. He kept thinking she'd had Erdheim Chester, but the tests proved negative. I understand from Robert - Dr. Chase - that Dr. House continued to worry about that case for years after Esther died, eventually treating… and saving… another patient with the same symptoms. It turned out he had been right all along. It was Erdheim Chester… but it hadn't progressed in the standard manner. Essentially, we had done the test too early. If we had retested as the symptoms became more pronounced, we might have been able to save Esther."

In her mind's eye, Martin saw House standing unstably as he leaned on his cane, in Esther's room, his shoulders drooped, his face contorted with repressed emotion, just after the elderly woman had died.

"That shows remarkable perseverance, Dr. Martin."

"Dr. House was determined to solve every case."

"It has been suggested that Dr. House was more interested in the medical puzzles than in the patients themselves. That he refused to see patients, in part, because he wanted to keep his objectivity, but also because he just didn't like people, including his patients, and he didn't really care about them. Would you agree?"

Dr. Martin thought back over her first year with Dr. House, when it was just the two of them working side by side to save patients' lives. "I'm not sure I would see it that way," she said. "I think, rather than not caring about his patients, he may have cared too much, and I suspect he found that emotional connection both disturbing - especially in a case like Esther's, when we lost the battle - and distracting. His goal was to get the answer, yes, but it was also to save the life."

"Apparently, from what we have determined, when Dr. House saw patients, he was often abrasive, which led to lawsuits over the years, although we have noted that nearly all the suits were dropped once Dr. House and his team solved the case. Were you aware of any times when he actually interacted with patients in a positive way?"

Martin smiled, her laugh lines crinkling up. As House's condition had begun to improve - or at least as he learned to deal with it better - he had still hidden himself away in the office. But sometimes - rarely - he would use both hands to gingerly lift his damaged leg off the desk, and off he'd go, lumbering down the hallways to a patient's room, Martin struggling to keep up as House barked out orders for possible diagnostic tests.

"Oh, yes," she replied. "I can think of numerous occasions when I stumbled upon him while he thought he was having a private conversation with a patient. If the patient was being obstinate, or the patient's loved ones were not behaving in the patient's best interest, he could be scathing toward them. I'll never forget seeing one child's parents looking shocked when he accused them of being bad parents because they let her play in a sandbox, which had given her parasites." Then her mind drifted off into memories of seeing House sitting, sometimes for long periods of time, which couldn't have been good for his leg, at the bedside of a patient.

She brought herself back to the present. "But then, there were times… when he was so perceptive, so good at being able to put himself into a patient's shoes. Maybe because of his own recent experience, he had a real affinity for some of his patients who were suffering. He tried to hide those emotions, of course, but we were together so much, he really couldn't hide everything from me. He was especially good with children. He somehow recognized their fears and their concerns, and would address them in a direct manner, never lying to them about the prognosis, but somehow soothing them through a difficult situation. He never talked down to kids, although, being a big kid himself, he did have a playful, childlike quality that seemed to appeal to his younger patients."

"That's a unique perspective, Dr. Martin."

"I think because I was the first of his fellows, and it was just the two of us working together for so long, I might have noticed things others didn't. And he was still feeling his way, since no one had ever created a department of diagnostics before."

"Did Dr. House publish much, attend conferences, teach courses or give speeches while you worked for him?"

"He didn't publish much, but when he did, it was always for the best medical journals - JAMA and so on. He didn't attend conferences or give speeches, although he had invitations nearly every week. I think some of his reluctance might have been because of his physical limitations, or perhaps because he was hesitant to run into colleagues who might ask too many questions about his injury, or worse yet, feel sorry for him. He detested pity, or anything even approaching concern. Occasionally, Dr. Cuddy coerced him into being a guest lecturer, but he tried to avoid that, too. Self-conscious, I guess. Over the course of that first year, I could almost literally see him constructing walls around himself to keep people at a distance, once it really sank in for him just how much his life had changed."

"That makes a lot of sense. How did Dr. House handle his paperwork while you worked for him?"

"To be frank, he handled it as little as possible. He was concerned with the patient and the case, not the insurance, the costs, hospital policy, or any of the rest of the bureaucratic bullshit."

"Then who did the necessary paperwork?"

"About once a month, he and I would put in a lengthy session, and clear the backlog off the table. He hated it, but it had to be done." He'd prop his leg up on a chair, with the ever-present pillow under his thigh, and the two of them would sort through the accumulated documents spread out across the conference room table.

Helen secretly enjoyed those sessions, because it was just the two of them in a more relaxed atmosphere, without the pressure of solving a case hanging over them. She felt she'd gotten to know him better sitting around the table than working on a case. They talked about everything under the sun, from current events, politics, literature, sports, the latest entertainment industry scandals - he seemed to have an endless capacity for enjoying trash - and a little bit about their own lives and history. During those sessions, she heard about his childhood traveling the globe, and his adventures in medical school. Each of them would bring in favorite music CDs, crank up the music, share a box of donuts or a pizza, and get to work. Of course, through it all, he was sarcastic and insulting… and clearly in pain.

"You say he was still recuperating when you went to work for him. How was his pain being managed?"

"It wasn't."

"I'm sorry. Did you say it wasn't being managed?"

"Yes, I'm saying it wasn't. At least not very effectively. During my three years, he tried numerous pain management treatments both on his own and in conjunction with a pain doctor outside of PPTH, some specialist from Trenton, I believe. He tried different medications, physical therapy, nerve blocks. Nothing seemed to help much. Many of the meds made his thinking hazy, which he wouldn't tolerate, and then he began taking Vicodin, which he knew would probably shorten his life because of the cumulative effects on his liver, but at least it enabled him to think clearly and controlled the pain to some extent. Of course, being such a private man, he kept his attempts to himself, for the most part, so I might not be aware of everything that was going on. I don't believe anyone at the hospital other than me knew how hard he was trying to find answers to improve his own situation."

"Could you speak a little bit about his pain levels while you worked for him?"

"The man was in agony. His pain was quite literally unbearable at times. Occasionally, when I walked into his office, I'd find him with tears in his eyes because the pain was so bad. One time, I remember, he bit his lip so hard it bled. In fact, I imagine that one of the reasons he kept people at a distance had to do with his pain."

"What do you mean?"

"Dr. House was very protective of his right thigh. I think he was constantly afraid that someone would bump his leg accidentally and set off a pain spasm. By keeping people at an emotional and physical distance, he may have felt that he had more control… that he could protect his leg and avoid more pain."

"Was Dr. Cuddy running the hospital while you were Dr. House's fellow?"

"Yes, she was."

"How would you describe their relationship?"

"I'm not sure I would say that it was a relationship, per se. She was his boss; he tried to avoid her or circumvent her whenever he could, and she tried to micromanage him. I'm quite sure he never told her about seeing a pain doctor outside the hospital."

"Really? What makes you think this?"

"Because on several occasions, he had appointments during working hours with his pain doctor outside the hospital, and he asked me to cover for him if she came looking."

"Did you know that Dr. Cuddy had been the physician in charge when Dr. House suffered his leg injury?"

"I had heard that, yes."

"Did that previous interaction seem to affect how they worked together?"

"I wasn't directly aware of anything; I never heard either of them discuss it. But I always suspected the department had been created for him in part to avoid a medical malpractice lawsuit. No tangible evidence, but I did hear rumors to that effect. I also hear Dr. Cuddy say on numerous occasions that she got Dr. House for a song, which I thought was ironic, since before that first year was out, his burgeoning reputation was responsible for bringing millions of dollars in donations into the PPTH coffers. I felt he was undervalued, both in terms of remuneration and the level of professional esteem he should have received."

"You said Dr. Cuddy began to micromanage Dr. House. Do you feel that was called for? Did Dr. House need the incentive of micromanagement in order to do his job?"

"Perhaps. Or possibly, he just needed encouragement. He had been through a really rough time. And she could be very harsh with him, and seemed to have very little understanding of his limitations."

"That seems surprising, given that she approved the procedure that left him disabled."

"I don't know if she was overcompensating because she felt guilty, or if that was just her style with him. He was doing unique work - unprecedented, in fact - and I often thought he deserved a different style of management because of it. I certainly didn't see her behaving that way with others in the hospital, so perhaps she had her reasons. I'm certainly willing to give her the benefit of the doubt."

"Were you aware that the two of them had known each other in medical school?"

"No."

"How about Dr. Wilson? Did he spend much time with Dr. House at the hospital?"

"He was in and out a lot. I was under the impression that Dr. Cuddy had given him the office next door to House so he would be available if House needed anything. I regularly saw him walking by our offices - which had glass walls - watching Dr. House intently. He often looked worried and concerned.

She took a sip of water before continuing. "It was my understanding that Dr. Wilson had really nursed Dr. House through the worst moments of his recuperation. House would grumble at him a lot, but if Dr. Wilson was late showing up for lunch, Dr. House would get distracted and agitated until Dr. Wilson showed up with lunch from the cafeteria. Maybe part of that was because it was time for him to take a pill, and it needed to be taken with food, but I think it was more than that. It was clear from his behavior, although not from his words, that he really valued Dr. Wilson's friendship during that awful time."

"How did Dr. House treat you? We've heard he could be hard on his employees, even abusive at times."

"He absolutely liked to push the limits of what was acceptable. On the other hand, I believe that sometimes people need to be pushed so they can find out what they're made of. I certainly did."

"Did you stay in touch with Dr. House after your fellowship was over?"

"I tried, but he never responded unless I needed a consult. I have credited him in every speech I've given and every article I've written, however. Not that he would care, but I do. It was an invaluable experience."

"Thank you, Dr. Martin, for taking time out of your busy schedule to come here and speak with us. We appreciate it."

"You're quite welcome."

"We'll continue with the next witness at 3 o'clock, following a 15-minute break."


	16. Day 4, 3 pm Eve

**Day Four, 3 p.m.**

"Good afternoon. Given the circumstances, we will ask only for your first name."

"It's Eve."

"Would you tell us how you met Dr. House?"

"I came into the PPTH clinic, and he was the doctor I saw." Deep in her own misery, she hardly noticed him at first. He seemed distracted and irritable, and she just wanted to get her results and go home and crawl into bed… maybe she'd stay there forever.

"Could you tell us why you saw Dr. House in the clinic?"

"I had been raped, and as a result, I got an STD and became pregnant." When he'd come back and made that snarky comment about _Dawson's Creek_, she was initially shocked. But then a moment later, after she'd recoiled when he started to hand her the chlamydia meds, he somehow figured out what had happened to her without the humiliation of her having to tell him. That was when she first paid attention to the man who had just been a faceless, and fairly grouchy, doctor up to that point.

"I'm so sorry to hear it. This sounds like an unusual case for Dr. House to take, given that the diagnosis was already clear-cut."

"All I knew is that there was something about him, something that made me want to have him as my doctor." It was when he had that flash of intuition that she'd been raped, that was when she knew he was the one she wanted to have as her doctor through this ordeal. Somehow, in that instant, she saw a hint of… of something… something she couldn't identify, but whatever it was, she could identify with it.

"That seems surprising. Dr. House wasn't known for his bedside manner."

"He was actually just what I needed. He provoked me, challenged my ideas, and brought me to the point where I could confront what had happened to me."

"May we ask how he did that?"

"At first, he made it clear he didn't want to be there. I think he might have been really annoyed that I refused to talk to anyone but him." She didn't just think it; she _knew_ it. He really didn't want to be there. He was awkward and uncomfortable, and definitely annoyed with her for putting him in that position. So he'd tried to hand her off to someone more qualified to deal with a rape victim… except she didn't want to be treated with kid gloves by a professional carer. She wanted the grumpy guy with the cane, who had shown that flicker of inspiration, and possibly genuine compassion.

"I'm surprised you would choose to deal with a person like that, given your trauma. Did you try talking to someone trained to handle your kind of situation?"

"Yes. In fact, I found I couldn't speak at all, and I… well, I tried to kill myself."

"Is that when Dr. House agreed to treat you?"

"Yes, although I gather he wasn't too happy about it."

"Why did you want him as your doctor?"

"I didn't know, at first. But as we talked, it became apparent to me that he was wounded in some way. I… I don't mean his leg… I mean some kind of psychic wound… and I related to that." _Oma_. How had she been so sure he was lying to her about the abuse coming from his grandmother? In retrospect, it made no sense, but she'd been positive… and she'd been right.

"Did he ultimately tell you what that psychic wound was?"

"Yes. Reluctantly. But he did tell me. After we spent a day stuck together discussing philosophy and religion, with him trying to convince me there was no God, and me arguing that there must be." Funny how that worked out, she thought. Here it was years later, she'd had the abortion with no real regrets, thanks to him, and now her beliefs had changed. She still believed in a God, but not necessarily a just one, and she had to admit that she even had moments of doubting that. How much of her religious evolution had come out of those conversations - arguments - with Dr. House all those years ago?

"Would you be willing to share what he told you?"

Eve swallowed a bit nervously. "I'm a little uncomfortable with that. I felt he spoke with me in confidence, and I valued his trust. In fact, it was that trust that helped me to open up to him." They were outdoors, at that picnic table by the lake, when he'd finally come clean about his childhood. He'd barely glanced at her when he confessed, which was how she'd been so sure he was telling her the truth. He almost seemed embarrassed by it, as if he were ashamed, and she suspected she might have been the first person he'd ever told his story to.

"Without giving us specifics, could you let us know the generalities of what he said?"

"I suppose that would be all right. He told me he had been physically abused by his father. I really related to that."

"So you would say that Dr. House helped you?"

"Yes. More than he could ever know. I aborted the baby - he insisted on calling it a fetus - and was then able to move on to more traditional therapy."

"Did you have any other interactions with Dr. House after that initial day?"

"No. I wanted to have my follow-up with him, but he refused."

"How did that make you feel?"

"I think I understood. It was so hard for him to bare his soul to me, and he was very uncomfortable the whole time we were together. I think he felt out of his depth dealing with such an emotional subject. I did send him a letter about a year later, thanking him again for his help and telling him how my life had turned out, but I never heard back."

"Is there anything else you'd care to add, Eve?"

"Yes. I've often wondered if it was because of that one day with Dr. House that ultimately led me to get my Master's degree in social work, to counsel rape victims. I would do anything to help Dr. House's reputation. He really saved me, even though I'm not sure he saw it that way. I think he got just about as upset as I did, by the time I finally told him what had happened to me. But he helped me make a really hard decision, and helped me to realize that I hadn't done anything to deserve what happened to me. That one day, in that one room, with that one man, changed my life. I'm just not sure he ever realized that he hadn't deserved what happened to him."

"Could you explain?"

"When he told me that his father had abused him, he never admitted the abuse wasn't his own fault. I wish I had thought to tell him that, when he told me the rape wasn't my fault."

"Thank you, Eve, for your courage in coming here today."


	17. Day 5, 9 am Martha M Masters

**Day Five, 9 a.m. - Friday**

"State your name."

"Martha M. Masters."

"How did you come to work for Dr. House, Dr. Masters?"

"Dr. Cuddy assigned me to him while I still a medical student." As she sat in Lisa Cuddy's office, just off the main lobby, Masters had felt intimidated by the powerful woman on the other side of the desk. Martha knew she was young and inexperienced, so she had kind of wondered if she were in some kind of trouble here, when, to her great surprise, Dr. Cuddy had given her the news that she was about to begin working with the infamous Dr. House.

"Interesting. As far as we know, you were the only student to work with Dr. House's team. And, in fact, someone else was denied a position on House's team for not yet having a medical degree."

"That's my understanding as well." She never really fit in with House's team, and she wasn't quite sure why at the time. Of course, she'd never really fit in much of anywhere. She was usually too book-smart for whichever crowd she was in, and she didn't have the knack of making friends, plus she didn't know how to use her smarts to figure out how a given social system worked. Her parents had always told her she could do anything she set her mind to, but somehow she just couldn't seem to set her mind to making friends or fitting in.

"How did your time with Dr. House work out?"

_Painfully_, she wanted to say. She'd come in comfortable with her knowledge of medicine and her values. By the time she left, she was more perplexed than anything else. The final straw was the patient she'd found herself sympathizing with, the man who turned out to be a serial cannibal. Not only was she appalled, but she was frightened about what her sympathy for the man had said about herself. "It was interesting," she finally said, "and it did make me into a better doctor."

"By interesting, what do you mean?"

"Well, he kept firing me and then rehiring me. Finally, we reached some sort of truce, and eventually, he gave me the choice to go or stay… and I made the decision to move on." The whole time she'd worked for House, she had felt as if she were on some kind of career rollercoaster.

"Why did he keep firing and rehiring you?"

"At the time, I wasn't sure," she replied, and she hadn't, although she'd had a lot of time to think about it since then. "I found the whole thing pretty confusing, but now, as I think about it, I guess it was at least partly because he preferred to choose his own team members, and didn't appreciate having me foisted on him. Especially when I didn't even have my license yet." There was also the fact that, toward the end, she had become something of a spy for Dr. Cuddy.

"You say he made you into a better doctor."

"Yes. No doubt about it. But I have to say that it wasn't an easy transition for me. I had a very juvenile notion of what it took to be a first-rate doctor, and he systematically broke me down to get me to be more realistic about it. The process wasn't always pleasant." _That _was putting it mildly. It had taken her two years to recover from those few weeks, but in the end, she realized she'd learned some very valuable lessons, not just about medicine or being a doctor, but about herself and what she really valued. As much as she hated to admit it, maybe House had been right - maybe sometimes not tell the whole truth was in the patient's best interest.

"How would you describe his management style?"

"At the time, I thought the man was insane." Martha got momentarily flustered, but soon pulled herself back together. "Sorry… I didn't mean that in a psychological sense." How embarrassing! She didn't mean that, not really. Shaking off her discomfiture, she went on. "But he was effective, and he made into a much better doctor than I ever would have been otherwise. He helped me mature as a person, and focus on what it really takes to be a first-rate doctor."

"Is there anything else you'd like to add?"

"Nothing that I recall right now."

"Thank you, Dr. Masters. We'll bring you back if we have any additional questions. In the meantime, we'll take a short break and come back at 10:30 a.m."


	18. Day 5, 1030 am Dr Jessica Adams

**Day Five, 10:30 a.m**.

The slim brunette seated herself primly on the hard chair, her back straight and her hands clasped loosely in front of her on the small desk.

"State your name."

"Dr. Jessica Adams."

"What was your connection to Dr. House?"

"I was one of his fellows."

"How did you come to get your fellowship?"

"I first met Dr. House when he was in prison. I was one of the prison doctors." She noticed the crippled man out of the corner of her eye, as he leaned heavily on the mop and bucket he dragged around with him. At first, she assumed he was simply another prisoner, but soon his mumbled comments about treatment and medicine made her keenly aware that there was something special about the man. Whereas she began to pay close attention to what he was saying, her supervisor chose to ignore the crippled man, as if he were not even there, as if he were vermin.

"Could you please give us some information about your interactions with Dr. House in prison?"

"Dr. House was not treated particularly well in prison. I first saw him when he was working in the prison clinic - as a janitor - and then because of some injuries he sustained. Even knowing that it would not be appreciated, he still offered his medical advice while he was working in the prison clinic. My supervisor refused to accept any of his suggestions. Frankly, I thought this was arrogant and self-serving, and not in the interest of our patients." It was almost as if House couldn't help himself, that his brilliant mind continued to work away at medical problems, even when he must have known his input wouldn't be appreciated.

After that, in her spare time, Adamson had gotten online and done some research about this mysterious janitor, discovering, to her great surprise, that he was a world-famous doctor who had an amazing gift for diagnosing people. Also, it appeared, he had been jailed for domestic violence, although he hadn't appeared to be violent when she got to know him. Impassioned, yes. Violent, no. If anything, he simply seemed to be in extreme physical pain, but with his spirit unbroken. She puzzled over it for hours, until she made up her mind what she was going to do.

"Ah. I suppose Dr. House found that frustrating."

"I think he probably did. In fact, his sentence was extended because he disagreed with my supervisor on the medical treatment for a prisoner. I, in fact, lost my job when I chose to treat the patient the way Dr. House had suggested. Let me assure you that the treatment was benign. There was no reason not to try it… other than my supervisor's arrogance. Dr. House turned out to be right, of course, but his insistence on trying to save that patient's life cost him his freedom, which was not taken into account when his sentence was extended. He had done something heroic, knowing what the consequences would be… but he did it anyway."

Adams had expected to be fired; she knew it the moment she decided to go ahead and treat the prisoner as House had recommended. But she hadn't gotten into medicine to play games; she'd gotten into medicine to help people, and this brilliant doctor - although a prisoner - was worth listening to. Later on, when she found out House had been thrown into solitary and had his sentence extended, she was furious. On some level, she felt a profound sense of admiration for the man who, knowing the probable penalty for his actions, had done what he believed to be right anyway. After she was fired, she filed a petition with the prison board to consider the extenuating circumstances behind Dr. House's actions, but her request had been disregarded.

Realizing the panel should probably know about this, she said, "I should tell you that I did approach the prison board, recommending that Dr. House be given special dispensation because he had saved that other prisoner's life, but they chose to extend his sentence anyway. It never seemed fair to me." In fact, she was still angry about it.

At this, all of the panel members began scribbling notes on their legal pads.

"Was this request documented?" asked the panel chairman, after looking up from his notes.

"It should be in his prison file," she said. "If not, I have the return receipt from the certified letter I sent, plus a notarized copy of my letter to the prison board, if you need to see them."

"Thanks, Dr. Adams. We'll get back to you on that. What was your impression of Dr. House while he was in prison?"

"He was in far too much pain, as far as I was concerned. I was well aware that other prisoners were stealing his pain medication, but I was not in a position to replace what had been stolen from him. When his original release was announced - before his sentence was extended - a group of prisoners tried to extort his remaining Vicodin from him, and he ultimately thwarted them, which cost him dearly."

On a couple of occasions in the clinic, she had noticed House staring longingly at the locked medicine cabinet where the painkillers were kept. But as far as she knew, he had never made an attempt to steal anything. It was almost as if he believed that not only did he deserve to be in prison, but he also believed he deserved to be in pain.

"Was this kind of extortion common?"

"I'm sorry to say that it was." She couldn't count the number of patients who were undertreated because other patients were stealing their prescribed medications.

"After Dr. House was released, how did you come to work for him at PPTH?"

When the phone rang that morning, the last person she expected to find on the other end was Gregory House, who, as far as she knew, was still living out that extended sentence. He asked her to come in for a consult, explaining that he had no budget to hire her, but he felt she could be helpful to him. Now that she knew who he was, she was flattered. She never hesitated to accept his offer, and arrived at the offices less than half an hour later.

"He hired me as one of his fellows. I should mention that I worked briefly for him for free before he got funding to reinstate his department."

"Why was that?"

"I was financially independent, and, after seeing his dedication to medicine in prison and experiencing his medical brilliance, I thought that it was too good an opportunity to pass up." It was the best decision she'd ever made.

"Why do believe Dr. House hired you?"

"He must have felt I would be an asset to his department, which was flattering. In addition, I'm reasonably certain he felt responsible for the fact that I had lost my job at the state prison." The entire time they'd worked together at PPTH, they'd never talked about their interactions in prison - could he have been too embarrassed to bring it up, or did he just feel that was his unfortunate past and he wanted to move on to his future? Embarrassment didn't seem to be part of House's persona, but she couldn't come up with any other explanation.

"You say you were 'reasonably certain.' Does that mean you don't know for sure?"

"Dr. House would never come right out and admit something like that. But he did seem to have a highly developed sense of responsibility. If he did something he genuinely felt was wrong, he tried to make amends." She had heard through the hospital grapevine that before House went to prison, he had turned himself in and refused legal counsel, accepting the first deal offered to him.

"Other than giving you a job, could you describe any other moments when he did this?"

"Yes, of course. When he was arrested, he chose to turn down legal counsel and accept a longer prison sentence than he ever should have received. I believe that was because he felt he deserved it, no matter what sentence the legal system would normally deem appropriate."

"How was your experience working for Dr. House?"

"Challenging. He was not always easy to work for, but I learned so much from him." Smiling, she thought back to the day her divorce came through, the day House had gotten funding for the department, when he had given her the go-ahead to smash all the orthopedic equipment in what was soon to become - once again - his conference room. Damn, that had felt good! Amazing how an act of physical violence could clear the system of such negative emotions. Was that how House had felt when he'd crashed his car into his ex-girlfriend's dining room? Had he somehow known from his own experience that she herself had needed the physical relief that only came from smashing something to bits?

"Did Dr. House ever talk about Dr. Cuddy?"

"No, I don't believe he ever mentioned her." Adams, of course, had heard plenty from the extremely active gossip network at the hospital.

"How did he get along with Dr. Foreman as his supervisor?"

"Hard to say," she began. "I think it was awkward for both of them at times, but eventually, they seemed to settle into a mutually beneficial pattern of behavior."

"What happened when Dr. Wilson became ill?"

What had happened? House, who seldom let his emotions show, was clearly beside himself. "Dr. House took time off to care for him as much as possible. That, of course, led to him ultimately winding up in that unfortunate situation."

"And now you work for Dr. Chase?"

"Yes. I was more than happy to stay in the department after Dr. House's… departure. Dr. Chase is an excellent supervisor."

"Thank you, Dr. Adams. I think that's all we have for you right now."

As she left the room, the panel chair said, "Everyone, back after lunch. See you at 1 p.m."


	19. Day 5, 1 pm Dr Chi Park

**Day Five, 1 p.m.**

"State your name."

"Dr. Chi Park." The tiny, bookish, owlish doctor swallowed convulsively out of nervousness. Underneath the desk, she gripped her pocketbook tightly.

"How did you become one of Dr. House's fellows?"

Of course, she'd heard all about him - the crazy man who drove his car into the previous dean's home, and had spent the past year or so in prison. "Well, I had a run-in with another doctor, and Dr. House brought me into his department shortly after that." But she'd also heard all about his other reputation, as the doctor who had the almost mystical ability to diagnose conditions that no one else could, who saved the unsalvageable.

"A run-in?"

"Yes." She certainly had a _run-in_ with the old bastard, with his roaming hands. Chi Park might have been tiny, might have been shy, but once wronged or annoyed, she fought back, even if her actions could cost her the career she'd worked so hard for. On some level, she kind of sympathized with House for responding violently when provoked. Of course, she didn't really know the circumstances of what had happened with him - yes, there were rumors, but how much of that could you trust? - and she wondered if he'd hired her in part because he had made that same comparison between the two of them.

"What kind of run-in?"

"Do I have to describe it?" Her parents had not wanted to hear what had happened - it was improper to discuss such things, and now she was expected to talk about it in front of strangers. Again.

"This is a confidential hearing, Dr. Park."

She sighed heavily, realizing this particular incident seemed destined to follow her for the rest of her life. "All right. The head of the department I was working in touched me inappropriately… and I hit him."

The chairman responded unexpectedly. Instead of asking, "Were you reprimanded or censured?" he asked, "Were there repercussions for this doctor?"

For a moment, she was nonplussed. "Not for him, no. But I had to go through a disciplinary hearing a short time later."

"Hmmm…. I assume that went well."

She repressed a smile, remembering how the whole thing went down. "Ultimately. In a very roundabout way, Dr. House made sure I was absolved of any charges."

"A roundabout way? What do you mean?"

Shock was the only word to describe her reaction when House had come barreling into the hearing room. "He burst into the hearing and berated me in front of the panel."

Members of the panel looked startled. "Really? And that got you absolved?"

Park smiled more broadly now. "Yes, actually, it did. He knew how much some of the other doctors hated him, and he used their dislike of him to make me look good. I guess he thought if they saw him trying to make me look bad, they'd be more sympathetic. It worked." She could see the panel members rolling this idea around in the heads, much as it had rolled around in hers until she'd come to grips with it.

"Describe your working relationship with Dr. House."

She demurred. "I'm sure others have described it better than I could."

"Yes, but we'd still like to hear what you have to say, especially because your tenure with him happened so close to the end."

House was all about the truth… unless it came to his own defects… so the truth was what she'd give them. "He was curt. Rude, even. Childish. But the best doctor I've ever seen. It's just too bad he was so self-destructive. He didn't need to be, after all. He was one of the most brilliant medical minds in the world."

"Do you think his Vicodin use contributed to his downfall?"

She'd worried this one to death. One day, she'd see it one way; the next day, another. "I have to confess, I'm not actually sure. Yes, he took Vicodin for his pain… certainly more than he should have… It's obvious that he had problems with it, but you can't get around the fact that his mind was brilliant, and, although I didn't believe it at first, the Vicodin didn't seem to impair him from doing his job. It may have caused other kinds of problems for him, but not in the way his mind functioned on the job."

"We've heard from a number of people that they didn't particularly like him, but they respected him. Would that be how you might describe your relationship with him?"

"Yes. But sometimes I liked him, too."

"Explain."

It was as if the question had unplugged a stopped up drain. Suddenly, the words spilled out. "He was so clever, so funny, so irreverent. It was impossible to really hate him, especially knowing about his medical successes and how much pain he was in. Sure he enjoyed breaking the rules, teasing people - behaving like a big teenaged boy - but that often made him really fun to be around, and a little exciting, because there was always the element of danger, whether it was because of a wild diagnostic test or what was going on in his personal life."

The image of him and Domenika setting up those fake pictures and prepping for their appointment with the immigration people popped unbidden into her mind. She remembered showing up at their apartment to use her knowledge of test-taking to convince House to make her his second-in-command. Quizzing them, bossing them around… it had felt good, and it was fun besides. Although Taub ultimately got the job… and now Chase was in charge of the whole department… she didn't regret the time she'd spent trying to convince House to promote her… it had done her ego a world of good.

"Is there anything you'd like to say to sum up?"

"Just one thing: I owe him my career, and no matter what else may have happened, I will always be grateful for that."

"Thank you, Dr. Park. Panel, let's meet back here in fifteen minutes."


	20. Day 5, 3 pm Domenika House

Day Five, 3 p.m.

"State your name."

"Domenika House." The slim woman with the long, straight brown hair, the bright smile and the twinkling eyes, as attractive as a model, spoke with a Russian accent of some sort. She appeared perfectly at ease.

"What was your relation to Dr. House?"

"I was his wife." At the end, she really had been. Not at the beginning, when she (rather easily, she thought) talked him into marrying her so she could get her green card. But then, toward the end, it was like a real marriage.

"How did the two of you meet?"

"I was pastry chef at a luxury hotel where he stayed after he and Dr. Lisa broke up." He'd called her up to his suite one morning to ask how she prepared the cinnamon rolls he'd become addicted to in the five days he'd been living at the hotel. Carnell, who used his master key to let her into the suite, warned her about him, saying he was living large and was a bit crazy, suggesting she should watch herself.

But somehow, the way Carnell had said it intrigued her more than frightened her. Maybe it was the smile on his face; he seemed to like this crazy doctor who was making a shambles of one of their more expensive suites. As she stepped through the door into the living area, she saw empty bottles and plates with half-eaten food on them all over the place, and, covering one of the lamps, a pair of neon green ladies' panties. Leaning against the coffee table was a hurdy-gurdy.

"How would you describe his behavior at the time?"

"He was very unhappy, but he tried to pretend he was having fun. I knew he was very upset when Dr. Lisa left him, and I think he was trying to do anything he could think of to avoid the pain he was feeling."

"Such as…?"

Before she'd gone into the suite, Carnell had told her a little about the man she was about to meet. He said the man, who had some kind of injury to his leg and was in a lot of pain, had just been dumped by a woman who was also his boss, that he was very unhappy and was drinking a lot, maybe doing drugs… anything to forget. Although she was usually the one doing the dumping, she'd been in enough bad relationships over the years to feel sympathy for a man who had been rejected by someone he cared about.

Although forewarned, she wasn't completely prepared for the man himself. Tall, grizzled, his hair sticking up in odd places - bedhead, they called it over here - with bloodshot eyes (was it from lack of sleep, from drinking… or had he maybe been crying?), he swiftly limped over to her while she was still standing in the doorway as Carnell closed the door behind her.

The man got right up next to her and gave her that look - she knew it well, that look, the one men gave her, scanning her appraisingly, eyes going slowly from her head to her toes and then back up again. It was predatory, that look, as if he was the Wolf and she was the Goat's kid, in the old folk tale her _baba _had told her when she was little in Ukraine. She waited, half-turned toward the door, thinking she might have to beat a hasty retreat if he lunged at her. But he didn't. He just nodded, one quick little nod, and invited her in, pointing abruptly at one of the chairs around the big table, which had a very large open pizza box full of crumbs sitting in its center. Domenika pulled the chair out, and sat on the edge of the seat, still prepared to run if she had to.

Unexpectedly, he offered her a shot of vodka - and very fine vodka it was. She demurred, saying that 11 a.m. was a bit early for her to drink, and besides, she was at work. He said, "Awww, come on. Just one little shot to get the heart going?" and she had downed the shot before he even had a chance to pick up his own shot glass, slamming her glass back down on the table and sighing as the warmth ran down her gullet. He grinned at her, grabbing his and doing the same. That was the beginning.

"He was drinking very much, taking pain medicine, and there were many prostitutes in his suite."

As they sat at the table and she told him her techniques for making cinnamon rolls and other pastries, the topic eventually drifted away from baking and onto other things. She was startled for a moment when he suddenly began speaking to her in flawless idiomatic Russian, but then she, too, quickly switched into the language that was more comfortable for her than this inconsistent English. After a few moments, he took a pill bottle out of his pocket, and poured some white capsules straight down his throat, swallowing them without even bothering to take a drink of water.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the bedroom door open and a couple of half-naked women peek out, looking at her curiously, almost as if they thought she might be competition for them. He waved his arm at them, shooing them back in. "Get dressed and go away," he'd said, in English. "Can't you see I'm in the middle of a business meeting?" Five minutes later, the two women, plus one more, all fully clothed, slipped out the door to the suite. She was now alone with him, but by this time she felt safe. If all he'd wanted was sex, he could hire another hooker. He wanted someone to talk to.

"But still you married the man?" asked the pudgy man sitting in the middle of the long table in front of her, looking puzzled.

"Yes." Oh, yes.

"Would you tell us why you would marry someone like this?"

It hadn't taken much to convince the bleary-eyed doctor to marry her. Domenika was used to manipulating men, but this one, unlike most of the others, had looked at her shrewdly, letting her know he was onto her tricks… and that he was okay with it.

She was the one who suggested he use their wedding as a way to see if his former girlfriend would care enough about him to stop the ceremony. He jumped on the idea, clearly recognizing the strategy behind it. If his ex stopped the wedding, Domenika was no worse off than before… she'd find another man to help her with the green card; it shouldn't take long. If the wedding went through, and Dr. Lisa didn't stop it, well, that was a different story.

Clever enough to realize the man in front of her would get hurt all over again if Dr. Lisa didn't intervene, and that Domenika might have to help pick up the pieces of her soon-to-be perhaps husband, she also thought it might not be so bad to spend time with this fellow. If he'd just sober up, he might be fun to be around. Anyone who was this extreme in a breakup was someone who felt things intensely - she wondered if he might be part Russian - and from the things he said to her, he was smart and had a good sense of humor.

Of course, there was Paolo, her married boyfriend. It was nothing too terribly serious, but she intended to keep seeing him, despite this green card marriage. If only he hadn't already been married, things would have been easier, and she wouldn't have to convince this man to marry her. But life wasn't always easy - she'd learned that in the Ukraine - and Paolo was married, and here was Greg, willing to help her out.

"I will be honest," she said, and for once she was. "I wanted my green card. I wanted to stay in America and not have to go back to Ukraine. He offered to marry me."

Greg was like a boy in some ways, proudly showing her off to his colleagues at the hospital, riding around on that Segway thing, her arms wrapped tight around his waist, the two of them sharing jokes and stories, as well as comments about the people they saw as they whizzed through the halls. And then that meeting with Dr. Lisa herself, with Domenika making sure to bring along some good Ukrainian pastry as a peace offering and to be as sweet as cinnamon rolls.

When they rolled into Dr. Lisa's office on the Segway, Domenika immediately sized up her rival. Long, dark, curly hair, blue eyes… yes, she was very attractive, if getting older. But she did not seem happy to see Greg… or her, for that matter. In her experience, exes often still had a fire flickering in their eyes… their love still burning. But Domenika didn't see that flame in Lisa Cuddy's eyes… if she still had feelings for Greg, she wasn't about to let him know it. Dr. Lisa seemed tense, clenched, pinched, and definitely angry. You'd almost think Greg had dumped her, rather than the other way around. She seemed hurt. For some reason, Domenika had a feeling Greg's hope that Dr. Lisa would stop the wedding just wasn't going to happen. She began to prepare herself for how he might react when, instead of getting his lady back, he found himself legally married to a woman he barely knew.

Later, the day of the wedding, when Dr. Lisa had abruptly decided they couldn't use the hospital's chapel for the ceremony, and everything had gotten shifted to Greg's apartment, he was annoyed. But Domenika had charmed him out of his bad mood, telling him she didn't want a church anyway, and besides, it was an intimate affair, so why not do it at home? She and her girlfriends had packed up all the food, the flowers and the other decorations, she used the key Greg had given her, and they had gotten everything set up. It looked nice, she thought when they finished.

"So the marriage was a sham? Don't worry. This is confidential. We won't report you. We just want to understand what happened."

She scrutinized the man in charge of the panel. Yes, he told the truth. Now that she had her green card, she was safe… or so she hoped.

"At first, it was sham, as you say. I wanted green card, and I'm pretty sure he married me hoping Dr. Lisa would stop him, that she would still care enough to keep him from being with me. But she didn't stop wedding. I think he was very hurt. Greg and I had so much fun, and I think I helped him get over Dr. Lisa. I really grew to care about him." _The old ball and Ukraine_, he started calling her, affectionately, almost as soon as the wedding was over.

The night of their wedding, she'd been prepared to sleep with her new husband, if that's what he wanted in payment for the green card. She did find him attractive in an older man way, and she knew he was unhappy. But as she had suspected, he was still hung up on Dr. Lisa, who hadn't stopped the wedding after all, so he left Domenika alone on the sofa after one sweet kiss between them. Watching his lopsided gait down the hall toward his bedroom, she felt bad for her new husband.

"If you cared about him, why did you file for divorce after you received your green card?"

She'd been so disappointed in Greg after that call telling her she'd had her green card for a couple of weeks already. Why she was disappointed, she couldn't say. From the moment she met him in that booze-drenched hotel room, she'd known that this was a man who didn't know how to handle rejection or emotional pain. But somehow, he had surprised her. Maybe she hadn't realized that he'd grown to care for her that much… and would therefore be upset if she left. Before she had a chance to think it through, she had packed up her things and left, but not before sadly, tenderly, saying goodbye to this husband of convenience who had come to be a real husband to her.

"I found out he threw away notifications from immigration people and didn't tell me I already had my green card."

"That seems rather despicable."

"Despicable, as you say. I suppose so. I figure out later he was maybe afraid I would leave him if he told me probation period was over. I know he liked me and wanted me to stay, so maybe he thought if I had my green card, I would leave him. Ironic, yes? If he hadn't been so afraid of losing me he hid my papers, I would probably still be with him… in fact, I know I would."

"Then why did you leave?"

"I was upset he would hide papers from me. I didn't figure out why he did it until after I left… after we divorced. I regretted leaving so many times. Maybe if I had been there…" Her voice trailed off.

"I understand the two of you were still married during the time he spent in prison. Is that right?"

"Yes. Is right. It was what you call marriage of convenience. I still wanted my green card, but living my own life. We only got close after he got out, when immigration people began checking on us."

Somehow, although she considered herself shock-proof, she had been shocked when she found out Greg had driven his car into Dr. Lisa's house. It was on the news in Vegas, where she was living with Paolo and making knishes. It was obvious to her that something had gone very wrong between Greg and Dr. Lisa since she'd left. She considered herself a very good judge of character - given her background and her appearance, she'd had learned to judge people quickly and accurately… and Greg never struck her as the violent type, at least not toward anyone but himself.

"How would you describe Dr. House?"

"Oh, he was attractive, funny, clever man. We had such fun together, even when we were playing tricks on immigration people - we pretended we took trips together, faked photos. I loved spending time with him. But Greg was also in a lot of pain. His leg hurt him so much, you know, and he still pined for Dr. Lisa."

"Could you tell us what your life together was like?"

"I cooked, cleaned, tried to make knish business. He would come home, sometimes very late, and we would eat the dinner and watch TV. Even before I cared about him, we would sit next to each other on couch. Or he would play piano and I would dance. I think he liked it when I danced." She _knew_ he liked it when she danced, or did exercises. His eyes would get that smoky, hooded look as he watched her prance around his living room and kitchen. Once she decided she liked him very much, she took advantage of that lust-filled look to make her move, getting herself off the couch and into his bed.

"Is there anything else you'd like to add?"

"Yes. I miss him. Good man. Gruff, as you would say, but good."

"Thank you, Mrs. House. We thank you for your testimony. Ladies and gentlemen of the panel, it's been a long week. Enjoy your weekend, and we'll resume on Monday morning at nine."

Domenika, who had retained her married name, partly for convenience (Ukrainian names were too hard for Americans to pronounce or spell) and partly for sentiment, rose from the hard chair and headed for the door.


	21. Day 6, 9 am Dr Howard Greenblatt

**Day Six, 9 a.m. - Monday**

"State your name."

"Howard Greenblatt. I'm a member of the board of directors at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital." Howard Greenblatt, a balding, bespectacled gentleman in his early 60s, leaned forward a bit as he answered.

"How long have you been on the board, Mr. Greenblatt?"

"It's _Doctor_ Greenblatt. I have been on the board for 16 years." He was, by nature, a political creature, but he couldn't say the same for others on the board.

"Sorry. _Doctor_ Greenblatt. And what is your profession?"

"Primarily, I am a fundraiser for the hospital, but I also have my own practice as a neurologist."

"During your time on the board of directors, did you have many interactions with Dr. House?"

"Unfortunately, yes. He was quite a handful."

"What was the nature of your interactions?"

"We got nearly monthly reports of his… umm… activities - lawsuits, requests for unusual procedures, and so on." Sometimes, it seemed as if the board spent its entire monthly meeting discussing what outlandish things Greg House had done this month, whether pissing off patients or other doctors, or approving tests that the hospital would then have to fight with the insurance companies over for reimbursement.

"Did you meet with him in person, or was this all secondhand?"

"We occasionally met, either when he had been called to account for himself before the board, or, rarely, at an official fundraiser. He seemed to loathe the more political and social aspects of being a department head, so he did his best to avoid them. The man was blunt, sarcastic and sometimes outright rude. But he could also be charming and funny, when the mood struck him." Greenblatt remembered sitting at a round table with Dr. House, Dr. Wilson and Dr. Cuddy, among others, playing poker at a benefit. House had actually dressed up for the occasion, and seemed to be on particularly good behavior that night. Until he got involved with a case, that is.

"What were your impressions of the man?"

"Initially, when I first joined the board of directors, I thought the man was nothing but trouble - couldn't figure out why the hospital had automatically given him tenure. But over time, I realized he was brilliant, and, as Seneca said, 'There is no great genius without a tincture of madness.'"

"So you feel that Dr. House was a great genius?"

"No question about it. He had a rare and wonderful gift." It took Greenblatt almost a year to begin to accept that House wasn't merely a madman, but rather a genius madman. Over time, he'd come around to the idea that bringing House into PPTH had actually been one of the smartest moves the hospital had ever made.

"How did his genius - or madness - affect the function of the board?"

"We spent an inordinate amount of time discussing him, both for good and for ill. After all, it was his brilliance, his reputation and his department that put Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital on the map, and brought in the bulk of the hospital's donations. I know that some of the board members had no patience with him, but they were stuck with him because of his tenure. Personally, I took a more tolerant view. I felt - in fact, I still feel - that anyone with that kind of brilliance, who also brings millions into the hospital, ought to be accommodated."

"So was he accommodated?"

Greenblatt looked the chairman right in the eye, making sure the man was paying close attention when he replied, "I didn't actually say that, did I? What I said was that he _ought_ to be accommodated."

"Interesting, Dr. Greenblatt. You are suggesting that he was not accommodated?"

"I'm not merely suggesting it; I'm saying it outright."

"You sound very definite about this. Could you elaborate, please?"

"Certainly. Let me start by saying that it always seemed to me that Dr. House's pain was never managed appropriately."

"And this was of concern to you as a board member?"

"It was, because it affected how he did his job, and how he interacted with others within the hospital… which ultimately affected how much time the board spent discussing him. In addition, if it had been managed properly, perhaps some of the later events might not have occurred, which did no good either for the hospital's reputation or for Dr. House personally. The impression I had from other board members and from Dr. Cuddy and Dr. Wilson, who was also a board member, is that they believed Dr. House's main problem was an addiction to painkillers… which, as I'm sure you know, eventually led to his commitment to Mayfield institution."

"You didn't see it that way?"

"No, I did not. Dr. House had severe nerve and muscle pain, requiring ongoing pain management… which I was never confident he actually received. This is my area of medical expertise, so I was particularly concerned about his health issues and how they affected his work situation. The drug problems he developed appeared to me to be an offshoot of the lack of appropriate pain management on an ongoing basis. In my opinion as a neurologist, the responsibility for that must lie at the feet of Dr. Cuddy as his supervisor and Dr. Wilson as his physician."

"Really? Why would you feel that Dr. House's drug issues were the responsibility of anyone other than himself?"

Good question, thought Greenblatt. Now, how to explain his position, from his own viewpoint as a neurologist. "Let me put it this way: If Dr. House's pain had been managed better, in all probability, he might not have overused his pain medication. And if he had begun having issues with his pain meds, it really should be up to his prescribing physician – which would be Dr. Wilson – to monitor the situation and work closely with Dr. House to resolve it satisfactorily. It's well known that if patients have pain that is treated well, they stick with the regimen they are on. It's only when the pain is out of control that they start self-medicating." Greenblatt thought of the numerous times he saw Greg House swallowing Vicodin during board meetings and as he hobbled around the hospital.

"Once Dr. House started having problems with his meds," he continued, "either because they had become ineffective over time, or because Dr. House needed to have his dosages readjusted, it should have been the responsibility of Dr. Wilson as his physician and Dr. Cuddy as his supervisor to intervene in a constructive way to get him back on track. It's part of the job of a supervisor to ensure the well-being of employees, and to allow them to work to their strengths. If the two of them had put his pain issues ahead of their own concerns about his drug use, the end result might have been very different. Of course, I'm not saying that Dr. House shouldn't have been held responsible for upping his dosages. All I'm saying is that, in my professional opinion, he was not _solely _responsible. Is that more clear?"

"Yes. Thank you, Dr. Greenblatt. Did you do anything about your concerns?"

"Well, yes, I did. I brought this issue up to the board several times, but the general consensus was that Dr. House was merely a drug addict, and that his use of hydrocodone explained some of his behavior issues. I disagreed. Strongly. First off, pain meds aren't the only things that can change a person's personality. Pain itself can cause behavioral changes. For example, people in pain become more withdrawn and more short-tempered - it takes all their energy to focus on the task at hand, and they don't have any reserves for anything other than what they are doing at the moment. Unfortunately, both within the medical community and outside it, the fear of addiction often causes patients in pain to be severely undertreated. As far as I could tell, the only times Dr. House seemed impaired on the job were when his painkillers were restricted, which reinforced my opinion that it was pain, not the pain meds in and of themselves, that affected his ability to function on the job."

"Before we go further, could you tell us how Dr. House came to be hired by the hospital? We understand that he had not had a great track record when it came to employment."

"Some months after his leg surgery, Dr. Cuddy, who had been the supervising physician on his case, came to us, requesting that we develop a department of diagnostics - the first in the world - and hire him as the tenured department head."

"Given his employment history, was it difficult to convince the board to do such a thing?"

"Dr. Cuddy made a convincing case."

"On what did she base her recommendation?"

"Oh, I remember the conversations quite clearly. She was clearly afraid of a multimillion-dollar malpractice lawsuit, one that would have been pretty justified, under the circumstances. She pointed out that the hospital was liable for his injuries - she didn't mention her own accountability, but it was pretty apparent that this was of considerable concern to her as well - and that, given his employment track record, the hospital could probably add him to the staff at a fraction of what a department head would normally receive in salary." There had been virtually no discussion about it.

"So this was a preemptive strike, in a way?"

"In a way, yes. But I felt at the time that we were also exploiting Dr. House, while trying to avoid almost certain litigation."

"We have his salary records among our documents, but I would appreciate hearing from you what you feel he was worth to the hospital, as opposed to what he was actually paid."

"I feel that, just because of how his reputation affected fundraising and our prestige, he was worth at least $250,000 more a year than we paid him. Plus, his raises were few and far between, thanks to supposed infractions, and over time, his salary slipped further and further behind what I believe it ought to have been, based on comparable national and New Jersey salary levels for a specialist and hospital department head."

"Do you know why he would have been willing to accept such a low salary?"

"He never specifically said, but if I had to make a conjecture, I would think it may have been that he knew his employment history was not exactly stellar, and I believe he really wanted to do the kind of work we offered him, so he was willing to accept our terms. In addition, my guess is that following his leg injury, he lost some self-confidence - not an unusual occurrence when someone develops a life-altering physical disability - and he may have felt that he was lucky to work anywhere, under the circumstances."

"Getting back to the pain management issue: How do you feel his pain issues should have been treated? And were you aware that he was seeing a pain doctor and a pain psychologist outside PPTH, at least for awhile?"

"No, I was not, but I'm glad to hear it. When we established the department, I argued to the board that he should have been assigned a regular pain management specialist - not realizing he was already seeing one, of course - to work with him on physical, pharmaceutical and even surgical methods to manage his pain, and that those appointments should be both regular and mandatory. In addition, I recommended that, as a condition of his employment, he ought to be referred to a pain psychologist to deal with the life-altering changes that had occurred."

"Did any of those things happen within PPTH?"

"No, they did not. At least not during the time he was employed by the hospital. There might have been attempts made while he was still a patient after his surgery. Sometimes, boards can be remarkably short-sighted, and I felt that, in order to get Dr. House on staff and get him to work immediately, the board and Dr. Cuddy allowed - actually, _encouraged - _a situation where most of the aspects of his recovery that should have taken place fell through the cracks. I also felt that, in accordance with the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, more accommodations should have been made for him at work."

"Such as…?"

"The man had to fight Dr. Cuddy just to get a handicapped parking spot, which I found appalling. His office was on the fourth floor - which meant that if the elevators were out of order, he had to try to struggle up the stairs on his own. He was forced to work in the clinic, which kept him on his feet, and he was, well… harassed is not too harsh a word… by Dr. Cuddy any time his pain was so severe that he really should have been given time off to deal with it. On at least one occasion that I'm aware of, Dr. Cuddy actually 'punished' him in the dead of winter by moving his parking space further away from the main doors, which had to have been extremely difficult for him. One slip on the ice, and he could easily have wound up in the hospital as a patient instead of a doctor. I thought it was incredibly inconsiderate and unpleasant, not to mention unprofessional and fraught with potential legal liability."

"Do you believe that some of the more dramatic incidents that took place later on, including Dr. House's mental breakdown, could have been avoided if your advice had been followed?"

"Yes. That's exactly what I believe. Unfortunately, the board of directors, under Dr. Cuddy's leadership, was more concerned with treating Dr. House like a nuisance than with addressing the issues that might have made him even more effective as a doctor who graced our institution with his unique and wonderful talents." Greenblatt wished he hadn't been on sabbatical during Vogler's reign of terror, as some of the board members had called it. Although he didn't always get the board to agree with him about things - for some reason, he'd never been terribly successful about anything that pertained to Greg House - he was generally pretty good at swaying some of the board members to his point of view.

"It sounds as if you admired the man."

"Yes, I did. I didn't always like him, but I certainly admired him. It took a lot of courage for him to come in every day and apply his skill to curing patients under those less than ideal circumstances. He could easily have filed for disability and spent the rest of his life at home, or maybe he could have become a consultant. With his talent, he'd have made a fortune if he had gone that route. I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but he hardly ever took any time off. Almost no vacations, and virtually no sick days."

"You say you didn't always like him. Would you care to explain?"

"Dr. House could be abrasive and disagreeable, and he seemed to take great glee in challenging authority. In addition to the pain issues I mentioned earlier, I suspect that some of that behavior was to ward people off, to keep them from feeling sorry for him - he seemed to prefer the idea that people hated him than that they pitied him - and some of it might have been because he was dealing with untreated or undertreated anger and depression because of his disability."

"You have suggested that perhaps Dr. Cuddy's management style wasn't always in Dr. House's best interest. Would that be fair?"

"Yes. I liked Dr. Cuddy personally, and I respected what she had accomplished in her career. But I didn't always agree with how she handled Dr. House."

"How do you believe he should have been managed?"

"First off, as I said, I believe that, as a condition of his employment, he should have received appropriate in-house pain management care, as well as pain psychology treatment. He should never have been expected to work in the clinic, where his talents were wasted and his physical limitations aggravated. He should have been paid commensurate with someone of his status, both in terms of his international reputation and within the hospital as a department head. He should have received support, rather than censure, for his creativity, and should have had encouragement instead of criticism. I'm really not sure he ever knew just how important he was to the hospital, or if he did know that, whether he believed it was only his gift that was valued, and not himself as a human being."

"How did the board come to hire Dr. Foreman as Dr. Cuddy's replacement? It seems like an unexpected choice, when there was a whole world of qualified hospital administrators out there."

Greenblatt smiled. "Again, the board and I disagreed about this. The board felt that Dr. Foreman could be had fairly inexpensively, and his connection to Dr. House might encourage donations. I argued that Dr. Foreman had virtually no administrative experience, and the few times he had run the Diagnostics Department, he hadn't exactly shined. I realized I'm starting to sound like an old curmudgeon, but after 16 years on the board, I do feel stymied on occasion." Greenblatt shook his head subconsciously, thinking back on his ongoing frustration with a board that was more concerned with the bottom line than with the long-term effects of what seemed to him to be their ill-considered decisions.

"Did you have an alternative suggestion?"

"Yes, indeed. I felt strongly that we should go outside the existing pool of applicants from PPTH, and find someone with vision and experience. I was overruled. Personally, I think they made a mistake. With Dr. Foreman in charge, the hospital has been functioning adequately. But a true hospital administrator could have kept PPTH in the forefront, possibly transformed it into one of the best hospitals in the world. I don't believe that's going to happen with Dr. Foreman in charge."

"Was the board informed when Dr. Cuddy and Dr. House began their relationship?"

"No. We only learned about it through the hospital grapevine and afterward."

"What was the board's reaction to what ultimately happened… when Dr. House drove into Dr. Cuddy's dining room?"

"A number of the board members - those who had never liked Dr. House to begin with - said they weren't surprised, that they had always thought he was a loose cannon and a danger to others. I held a different opinion."

"What was that opinion, Dr. Greenblatt?"

"First off, I thought it extremely inappropriate for Dr. Cuddy to begin a sexual relationship with an employee. In addition, I felt the whole thing was remarkably mismanaged. When the two of them entered into a relationship, she should have immediately relinquished her duties as his supervisor to someone else. And afterward, once the relationship ended, since she had insisted on retaining her status as his supervisor, I felt she had a responsibility to ensure that Dr. House had appropriate support - both emotional, because of the breakup, and medical, because of his relapse. Instead, she just cut him loose and let him fend for himself, even when it was apparent that he was having serious difficulties. If he'd had the kind of support that he deserved… that any human being deserves… perhaps the end result might not have been so unfortunate."

"Was there anything else about their relationship that was of concern to you?"

"Oh, yes. I understand that there were occasions during those few months - and I witnessed a couple of the incidents myself - when Dr. Cuddy brought their personal relationship into the workplace. I heard from a number of staff people that she manipulated him into changing the way he treated patients, which brought his success rate down, and that she even talked him into treating her own mother without her mother's consent, when he felt it was inappropriate to do so. As you know, that led to the threat of a major lawsuit from her mother a few months later."

"This is enlightening, Dr. Greenblatt. You seem to have been privy to information that we have not seen in our records. Let me see if I can summarize: You feel that Dr. Cuddy handled her relationship with Dr. House in an unprofessional manner. Is that right?"

"It is indeed. Unfortunately, as on all of the things I have mentioned, I was in the minority on the board. For the most part, the board simply rubberstamped whatever Dr. Cuddy asked for, and seldom berated her when I felt it was called for."

"Thank you, Dr. Greenblatt. Is there anything else you would like to add?"

"Not at this time."

"If you think of anything else, please contact our offices, and we will bring you back for further testimony. We'll see our next witness at 11 a.m."


	22. Day 6, 11 am Darryl Nolan

**Day Six, 11 a.m.**

"State your name for the record, please."

"Dr. Darryl Nolan."

"And what was your relationship to Dr. House?"

"I was his psychiatrist at Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital and afterward."

"Would you tell us how he came to be under your care?"

"His friend, Dr. James Wilson, called me. Dr. Wilson and I had met at a medical conference a few years earlier. He told me that Dr. House had been suffering from delusions and hallucinations, so I arranged for him to be admitted right away. Although Dr. House checked himself in voluntarily, when I realized how critical his depression was, I changed that to an involuntary commitment."

"What was Dr. House's treatment at Mayfield?"

"Initially, he underwent an intensive detox to get him off the Vicodin, which appeared to be the primary factor in his willingness to commit himself."

"You say 'appeared to be a primary factor'? Are you saying that you believe the initial reason for Dr. House to be at Mayfield was not just his dependence on painkillers? You mentioned depression as the primary reason he stayed at Mayfield for three months."

"Yes, Dr. House was severely depressed."

"But was it the Vicodin side effects that initially brought him to Mayfield?"

"I believe that his dependence on the drug was only part of the problem. I suspect that there might have been some additional medical issues that also contributed to his breakdown."

"How did the detox go?"

"Frankly, it was brutal. It's bad enough to go through detox when a patient is simply addicted. It's quite another when there are extenuating circumstances like chronic pain, such as Dr. House experienced."

"Do you believe Dr. House was an addict?"

"Perhaps. He exhibited many of the symptoms of an addict. But because he was on painkillers for actual - and quite severe - pain, I think he better fits the criteria for pseudo-addiction."

"Just how bad was this detox?"

"He was in excruciating pain, frantic really. He actually pounded on the door of the detox room so hard at one point, he made his hand bleed."

"How did you address Dr. House's pain issues, Dr. Nolan?"

"Not as well as I would have liked. He should have been put on a pain management regimen that included some form of narcotic, but he refused, insisting that the side effects of the Vicodin were what had brought him to Mayfield… and he just didn't want to take the chance of continuing to hallucinate… which, of course, I understood."

"So I assume the hallucinations disappeared after he detoxed?"

"Yes…" Nolan hesitated. "…Eventually."

"Hmmmm… Getting back to what you said earlier, what makes you suspect there was also a physical cause?"

"According to his medical records, he had suffered several head injuries over the previous few years - which, as I'm sure you know, have a cumulative effect. I think they might have contributed to his condition, creating an underlying physical cause as well as a pharmacological one."

"Once Dr. House was clean of Vicodin, what happened?"

"He tried to check himself out, but I wouldn't allow it."

"Why not?"

"I felt he had lingering issues - the depression that I mentioned earlier - and I was concerned that without intensive therapy, he would slip back into the same unfortunate condition that had brought him to us in the first place."

"How did Dr. House react when you informed him that he had to stay at Mayfield when he wanted to leave?"

"He was angry, of course. For quite a while, he acted out. He tried everything he could think of - and, trust me, he was quite clever and manipulative - to get me to let him leave. Ultimately, following a serious incident, he realized he needed help, and he stayed on until I felt he was safe to return home."

"Could you describe the serious incident for us?"

"I would rather not, unless you insist. Let me just say that it was a wakeup call for Dr. House."

"We won't press the issue. I believe we may have those facts already. What would you say was the cause of his depression?"

"There were multiple causes, some recent, some long-standing. Even though we worked through many issues, I'm not sure that we touched on all of the contributing factors."

"Would you be willing to expand on some of the contributing factors you did discover?"

"I believe, probably because of his genius, that he had always felt extraordinarily lonely. Very few people in the world were in his intellectual league. It can't be easy to be that different from most of the people around you. He was also frightened, because of the hallucinations and delusions, and how those might affect his overall mental health and his professional future… of course, his entire career was based on his ability to think clearly, so mental health issues would be particularly disturbing to someone like that."

"Very understandable, given his professional reputation. Were there other areas of concern?"

"Oh, yes. The deaths of Dr. Kutner and Dr. Volakis devastated him. He held himself responsible. Plus, his ongoing pain issues and disability were something he had never totally come to terms with… and then, of course, there was the fact that his father had abused him when he was a child."

"We've already heard something about that abuse. So you would say that he had issues going back throughout his life?"

"Absolutely."

"How did the child abuse topic come up?"

"After just a few sessions with Greg, I became aware that he was exhibiting signs of an adult who has been abused as a child, so I confronted him about it."

"What might those signs have been?"

"It's a well-documented field of study. Adults who have suffered physical abuse as children have major trust issues. It makes sense, because the people they trusted when they were children hurt them. Sometimes, as in Greg's case, that lack of trust causes them to actively sabotage friendships and other relationships. In a way, they are exerting a level of control over a situation that they believe is bound to end badly for them… they believe that if they bring a relationship to a halt, instead of waiting for the other person to reject them, perhaps it won't hurt as much. Then, when the relationship does end, it simply confirms for them that they shouldn't trust other people. It's a vicious cycle that makes them feel isolated, worthless and hopeless. I hope I've made that clear enough."

"Yes, indeed, Dr. Nolan. Any other symptoms that caught your attention?"

Dr. Nolan cleared his throat, poured himself a glass of water and took a few sips before continuing. "These adults choose friends and romantic partners who don't treat them particularly well. When the other person treats them poorly, they simply take it, as if they think they deserve ill-treatment. The flip side of that is that they tend to distrust anyone who does actually treat them well. Although they are almost desperate for a loving and intimate connection with someone else, their low self-esteem and strong feelings of inadequacy in their personal lives stops them from forming healthy relationships."

"Are you saying that the people in Dr. House's life treated him poorly, and he let them do it?"

"Yes, I am. In particular, Dr. Wilson and Dr. Cuddy did not treat him at all well, from what I gather. Of course, his abrasive nature made it easy for them to mistreat him. He may subconsciously have been setting them up to behave badly toward him, but that's a topic unto itself."

"Are there are other symptoms found in these adult victims?"

"Yes. They also have trouble with physicality - they hate to touch or be touched… probably because they subconsciously associate touch with pain."

"Anything else along these lines, Dr. Nolan?"

"Yes. Much more than the norm, these victims take extreme risks, develop substance abuse problems, have insomnia, and experience suicidal thoughts or actively harm themselves. And that's just the tip of the iceberg."

"How many of these symptoms applied to Greg House?"

"I'd have to say that all of them did. He was almost a textbook case. As I said, I noticed the symptoms first, and then worked with him about his father's abusive behavior and how it had affected the course of his life. Truthfully, I'm not sure that he ever really disclosed to me the extent of the abuse. He just mentioned a few isolated incidents, and we talked about how his adult behavior fit in with the classic symptoms."

Nolan took another sip. "Even some of Greg's depression and anxiety could be traced back to physical and verbal abuse in childhood."

"How did he react when you confronted him about the abuse?"

"At first, he denied it. Again, not unusual. Abused children are often threatened by their abusers, so it becomes ingrained in them to stay silent. But once we began to talk, I think he found it comforting to know that some of his problems came from his childhood trauma… that neither the abuse nor the lingering after-effects were his fault, and they didn't make him a bad person. You should know, however, that he believed his childhood abuse shouldn't absolve him of any adult behaviors. Again, not unusual. Like other abuse victims, he had an overdeveloped sense of guilt and responsibility. I remember once he told me that success was fleeting, but failure lasted forever."

"Would you be willing to give us some examples of how the symptoms you noticed played out in Dr. House's life?"

Nolan exhaled slowly as he thought about it, then taking another sip of water. "The first thing that comes to mind is that Greg had a history, when lonely or depressed, of going to seedy bars and picking fights he was sure to lose, essentially allowing himself to get beaten up. Pretty common for abuse victims, partly because it reinforces their negative opinion of themselves, but also because the fights themselves and the physical injuries release adrenaline and endorphins, temporarily making them feel better. It's an inadequate and dangerous quick fix."

"That seems to fit in with what we have learned," said the panel chair, nodding his head.

Nolan continued. "Greg also jumped into relationships quickly, exhibiting that sense of desperation I mentioned earlier, and allowing desperation to rule him. Like an old wooden table soaking up lemon oil, he was thirsty and hungry for human contact and would leap into relationships without thinking it through. I realize I'm going on and on, but I hope you understand I'm trying to recap months of therapy into a few sentences."

"Understood."

"Even though he was so very desperate for human contact, his low self-esteem usually interfered - he would run away from the relationship, or sabotage it in some way. At the beginning of a new relationship, until he became confident it was serious, he was terrified of misreading the situation and getting hurt. Then he jumped into it whole-heartedly. I may be speaking out of turn here, but he and I talked after he left prison about how he had gotten involved with Dr. Cuddy, and I firmly believe that the only reason he got into that relationship at all was because she made the first move… and she did it when he was especially vulnerable. It followed his previous pattern that he would then go from zero to 60 in five seconds."

"Noted. Once he got into a relationship, how did those childhood issues affect how a relationship progressed?"

"Out of fear that he might be abandoned, he often caved in to the whims of those he cared about, when it was something he thought might be a deal-breaker. A good example of this would be when his friend Dr. Wilson asked him to undergo the deep brain stimulation. Someone with good self-esteem, feeling confident in their friendship, would never have agreed to something so dangerous."

"Do you feel your treatment of these issues helped Dr. House?"

"I hope so. To some extent. I just wish I could have continued therapy with him."

"What happened when you felt Dr. House could return to society?"

"He was actually surprised. I think by that point, he was fairly nervous about it, and wasn't positive that he was, indeed, ready."

"How did you handle his transition?"

"I contacted Dr. Wilson, and asked him to let Dr. House stay with him until such time as I felt he was ready to go back to the apartment where he had so many troubling memories."

"What was Dr. Wilson's reaction to that suggestion?"

"He seemed to be reluctant to provide a temporary home for Dr. House, although I'm not sure why."

"But he did provide a place for Dr. House to live?"

"Yes, but if I may be frank, that's about all he provided."

"What do you mean?"

"Dr. Wilson seemed overly concerned about whether or not Dr. House would go back on the Vicodin. At the same time, he seemed oblivious to just how depressed Dr. House was, how much physical pain he experienced, or how much Dr. House was working on his recovery. I don't honestly think he helped the recovery very much. In fact, I think he probably hindered it. I say this all confidentially, of course."

"Of course."

"I continued to meet with Dr. House on a regular basis for the next few months, and from what he told me, neither Dr. Wilson nor Dr. Cuddy was terribly supportive. Not that he specifically said they weren't helping him, but from what he told me of their actions - and lack thereof - it was pretty apparent. I couldn't help but think of their behavior toward him in light of his own residual childhood issues. They treated him poorly… and he let them."

"What did you do about that?"

"I attempted to talk to Dr. Wilson about the situation, but he seemed quite sure that he knew Dr. House better than I did, and rejected my suggestions. I sent him regular reports, but, to be honest, from his behavior, I'm reasonably sure he never read them."

"How about Dr. Cuddy?"

"I tried reaching her a number of times, but she never called me back."

"Tell us more about what happened with Dr. Wilson, please."

"Probably the worst situation was when Dr. House believed he had started hallucinating again. He knew he wasn't on Vicodin - although Dr. Wilson and Dr. Cuddy kept accusing him of slipping - not the best way to help someone, in my opinion, especially because most people have relapses at one time or another, so encouragement tends to work better than accusations - and I think Greg was flat out terrified that he was losing his mind."

"Why would he have thought he was hallucinating?"

"Apparently, Dr. Wilson was whispering to his dead girlfriend in his bedroom as part of some kind of crackpot technique - not well supported psychiatrically, in my opinion - to deal with his grief. I assume you know that one of the reasons for Dr. House's depression was his overwhelming, and mostly unjustified, sense of guilt over that girlfriend's death."

"Go on."

"Dr. House thought he was hearing voices, when, in fact, it was just Dr. Wilson's whispering. Dr. House was really thrown by this, and was nearly ready to recommit himself to Mayfield."

"What ultimately happened in that situation?"

"Somehow, he discovered what Dr. Wilson was doing, teased him a bit about it, and then - with considerable relief - realized he wasn't having another psychotic break."

"How did Dr. Wilson react?"

"According to Dr. House - I wasn't able to speak with Dr. Wilson directly, although, looking back, I wish I had been even more insistent - Dr. Wilson accused Dr. House of not having been serious about his reaction to the whispering."

"Are you saying that Dr. Wilson didn't take it seriously that Dr. House had become genuinely concerned for his sanity?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Under what circumstances did you stop treating Dr. House?"

"He essentially fired me a few months later. While at Mayfield, he had expressed a desire to become happy, but happiness continued to elude him, and I believe he became too discouraged to continue trying. Clearly, he was frustrated and still deeply depressed."

"Why do you think that was?"

"I don't know all of the reasons. As I said, I gathered from what he told me that he did not feel supported in his recovery, that he had actively pursued a legitimate relationship - as opposed to a delusional one from before his breakdown - with Dr. Cuddy, which had been rejected because she had already begun seeing one of Dr. House's friends, and… I... well…"

"Yes, Dr. Nolan?"

"Well, we had a bad session. Like any other professional, I have my good days and my bad days. I had misjudged how to treat him on that particular day, and he reacted badly to it. In my opinion and in retrospect, he was probably right, but I was very concerned that he had abandoned treatment."

"What did you do about that?

"I continued to call him, although he let all my calls go to voicemail. I also sent him a few letters, which he ignored. Following the incident with Dr. Cuddy's house and after his incarceration, he contacted me again, and we resumed his treatment once he was released from prison. At first, we did phone sessions, because he was still on parole and unable to travel, but eventually, he came to Mayfield for face-to-face sessions."

"Were you surprised when you learned about what happened with Dr. Cuddy's house?"

"Quite frankly, yes, and very worried about him. Dr. House had always turned his emotional traumas inward, becoming self-destructive, and this kind of violent outward behavior seemed out of character for him. I couldn't help but feel that my initial instincts about there being an underlying physical cause for some of his issues might be well-founded. I also wondered if I should have recalled him to Mayfield after he broke off our sessions."

"When did you learn about what had happened?"

"I saw the story on the news. Once Dr. House had been arrested, I attempted to intervene on his behalf with the judge, but Greg insisted on, as he called it, 'paying the price.' He refused all legal or psychiatric help, and as a result, was given a much stiffer sentence than he should have received. I gather it did not go well for him in prison. And then, after saving another prisoner's life, his sentence was extended, which I felt was completely unjustified. He should have been rewarded for that kind of medical dedication, not punished even further. As you know, that needless extension led to the circumstances that have brought us here today."

"Thank you, Dr. Nolan. Is there anything you'd like to say in summation?"

"Yes, there is. I believe that the legal and medical systems, and those in his personal support system, did not serve Greg House well. I include myself in that assessment. We let him down. We all let him down. I think a lot of his troubles could have been avoided if the circumstances had been different… if his medical issues had been treated differently, if his support system had actually supported him, rather than criticized and judged him. Given the man's brilliance and talent, I can only think that this is a real disgrace, perhaps even a crime."

"Thank you for your time, Dr. Nolan. We appreciate your professional perspective. We'll take a recess for lunch, and meet back here at 1 p.m."


	23. Day 6, 1 pm James Wilson 1

_Dear Readers - Sorry to leave you hanging, but I'm going out of town for a week and won't be able to post any chapters while I'm gone. I promise I'll get back to the story as soon as I return._

_-harp_

**Day Six, 1 p.m.**

"State your name and specialty."

"Dr. James Evan Wilson. I am an oncologist."

"Dr. Wilson, thank you for attending these proceedings today. First off, let us say that we were pleased to hear that your cancer is in remission."

"It appears to be completely gone."

"Congratulations. That must be a relief. What was the nature of your relationship with Dr. Gregory House?"

"A friend. My best friend."

"We have already heard from many of Dr. House's fellows, as well as others, in an attempt to gather information about the situation in question. With you, we would like help clarifying some topics and the sequence of events."

"My pleasure. What would you like to know?"

"Let's start with what you know about Dr. House's leg injury. Could you please tell us what happened and how it was treated?"

"Do you want only first-hand information, or what I learned later? I was out of town when the problem actually started."

"If you distinguish between what you observed first-hand and what you discovered later on, it would be acceptable to hear both, as you are one of the few people involved in Dr. House's life both before and after the incident, now that his mother has passed on."

Wilson nodded. "As you may already know, Greg developed severe leg pain while golfing. The short version - and I was not present at that time - is that it was misdiagnosed as muscle strain and then drug-seeking behavior for several days. Eventually, he diagnosed it himself as a blood clot that had led to muscle cell death. His girlfriend, Stacy Lockhart - now Stacy Warner - overrode his wishes while he was in a medically induced coma to ride out the worst of the pain, ordering instead a debridement, which left him in permanent debilitating pain."

"Does Ms Lockhart have medical degree? We understood she was an attorney."

"No. What you understood is correct. She has no medical degree; she is an attorney."

"Dr. Cuddy was the physician on the case?"

"Yes, she was. She informed Ms. Lockhart about the debridement procedure."

"Did she do this while Dr. House was still conscious and able to make an informed decision?"

"Not to my knowledge. As I understand it, Dr. Cuddy did not discuss it with Stacy while Greg was conscious."

"Thanks. That confirms what Mrs. Warner, formerly Ms. Lockhart, told us earlier. At what point did you become aware of the situation?"

"When I returned from my honeymoon."

"What was your involvement from that point forward?"

"I provided medical and emotional support as Greg learned, to the best of his ability, to cope with his handicap."

"Where was Ms. Lockhart through all of this?"

"Greg felt betrayed by her, and after a couple of months, gradually pushed her out of his life."

"Who else was providing support for Dr. House at this time?"

"There was really no one but me."

"You knew Dr. House for some years before this happened, yes?"

"Yes."

"Did the injury and its emotional fallout affect his personality?"

"I would say that it did. He had always been sarcastic and never suffered fools gladly, but from that point forward, his temper grew shorter and he lost any ability to trust people - something he already had issues with."

"After Ms. Lockhart's actions, we understand you became Dr. House's medical proxy and also his prescribing physician."

"That is correct."

"Let's move forward a few years. In 2005, you grew concerned about Dr. House's use of opiates."

"Yes, that's correct. I felt he had become an addict."

"An addict... or someone in pain who had become dependent on painkillers to deal with the pain?"

"I thought he was an addict."

"Do you have a background in addiction issues?"

"No, not really. I am an oncologist."

"So you are used to prescribing opiates for severe pain?"

"Yes, I am."

"But the patients you prescribe painkillers for are generally dealing with end-of-life pain issues, not ongoing chronic pain. Would that be an accurate assessment?"

"Yes, it would."

"Do you have any specific training in chronic pain and the use of various painkillers for it?"

"Not really, no."

"Could you tell us about the ways you attempted to help him with his pain and what you perceived to be his addiction to Vicodin?"

"Dr. Cuddy and I had numerous conversations about our concerns."

"Excuse me, Dr. Wilson. Would those be conversations with Dr. House or with each other? Your statement was a bit vague."

"With each other."

"Did these conversations deal with finding better ways to help Dr. House manage his pain?"

"No. They were strictly about his addiction issues."

"Did you consult, or consider consulting, a pain management professional?"

"No, we didn't."

"How about an addiction specialist?"

"No, we didn't."

"What is Dr. Cuddy's specialty?"

"Endocrinology."

"So are you saying that you and Dr. Cuddy were attempting to treat outside your area of expertise without consulting experts in those specialties?"

"Yes, I guess I am." For the first time, it occurred to Wilson to wonder why he and Cuddy hadn't spoken to anyone trained in those fields. There certainly were people at PPTH they could have consulted with. Was it because Greg had always been so private about his personal life… or perhaps because Cuddy and he had, instead, been so arrogant that they assumed they knew what was best for Greg without actually researching the situation a little better?

"Do you know the difference between addiction, dependence and pseudo-addiction?"

"In theory, yes."

"What made you think that Dr. House was addicted, rather than dependent or pseudo-addicted?"

"He would become extremely agitated if his prescription was nearing depletion, and he seemed to be going through his prescriptions at a faster and faster rate."

Members of the panel conferred for a moment. "You do you realize that, don't you, Dr. Wilson, that over time, most chronic pain patients find that opiates tend to lose their effectiveness, and that it is not uncommon for them to increase their dosages almost subconsciously, whether or not they meet the criteria for addiction?"

"Well, it certainly became apparent later on that he was an addict," Wilson answered, defensively. "He began stockpiling drugs, and he actually forged my prescriptions to get more. Then he stole a bottle of oxycontin from the pharmacy under a prescription for one of my dying patients."

"All of which are symptoms of pseudo-addiction as well as addiction… pseudo-addiction being defined as drug-seeking behavior in people whose pain is untreated or undertreated. Pseudo-addiction seems as if it might be a better fit for Dr. House's case, doesn't it?"

Wilson gulped, suddenly very aware that he had never bothered to explore the exact nature of House's addictive behavior… and he had never considered that perhaps it was a result of pain that he, as House's primary care physician, was not treating appropriately. "I… I probably… I don't know what to say," he finished lamely.

"Getting back to your previous statement… you did not know about the stockpiling and other things at the time in question?"

"N-no, I did not."

"Was there anything that you noticed _at the time_ that convinced you that Dr. House was addicted, rather than pseudo-addicted or physically dependent?"

"Yes, of course." Wilson shook of his feeling of unease and projected himself back in time, recapturing the thoughts he'd had then. "He couldn't get by without those pills. One day, when his prescription needed refilling, the pharmacy had not received its shipment on time, and he became quite agitated."

"Is it possible that the fear of pain was causing Dr. House's agitation?"

"I suppose so, but neither Dr. Cuddy nor I believed that to be the case at the time."

"We may come back to this later on. Tell us what happened next."

"When his prescription was late, as I said, Greg became quite agitated, so Dr. Cuddy bet him that he couldn't go a week without Vicodin, and offered him time off from clinic duty if he was able to stay clean for the week. It was my idea." Wilson was still rather pleased with himself that he'd manipulated Cuddy into giving House the ultimatum, and that House hadn't suspected that he was behind it.

"Had you tried to get Dr. House into any type of pain management program before that?"

"No. He insisted that the Vicodin worked for him and enabled him to control his pain, while still thinking clearly enough to do his job. I thought if he was forced to see his addiction for what it was, he might be willing to get treatment for it."

"Did you ever ask him what other kinds of pain management techniques he had tried prior to using Vicodin?"

"No... not really."

"Not really? Did you or didn't you?"

"I… I didn't."

"So you weren't aware that he had seen a pain management specialist, and that the two of them, after trying a considerable number of other treatments, settled on Vicodin as the best solution for him?"

Wilson felt his face flush with embarrassment. "N-no. I had no idea."

"On the Vicodin, had Dr. House been able to function at work… do his job?"

"I suppose so… but he was often very unpleasant to deal with."

"Didn't you just tell us that he had always been sarcastic?"

"Yes, but he had become much more short-tempered."

"Again, Dr. Wilson, pain can often cause a change in temperament. What you're describing is not necessarily indicative of drug abuse."

Wilson felt his skin grow warm. The room was suddenly very uncomfortable. His mouth got really dry, and he found it hard to form words. "I-I… All I can say is what we believed at the time."

"Without the benefit of adequate knowledge. However, let's not argue the point. Getting back to the incident in question… you and Dr. Cuddy conspired behind his back to have Dr. House detox cold turkey?"

"Essentially, yes."

"Was this detoxing process done at the hospital?"

"Yes and no. While he could, he continued to work. When the detoxing got too difficult, he went home and continued detoxing there."

"What kind of supervision was he getting at the hospital?"

"Dr. Cuddy was his supervisor."

"Perhaps I wasn't clear. What kind of _medical_ supervision? And which physician supervised his withdrawal while he was at home?"

"None. He supervised himself."

"He did it himself?"

"Yes."

"Dr. Wilson, I feel compelled to ask: Weren't you concerned about the dangers of leaving a chronic pain patient alone while he was withdrawing from Vicodin cold turkey? He could have become perilously dehydrated or even suicidal. The standard procedure is to provide replacement pain therapy and constant physician supervision, although ideally one should never expect a patient - particularly one in pain - to go through an abrupt withdrawal of this kind. It's very hard on the patient and studies show that the chance of relapse is extremely high."

"We just wanted him to come to grips with his addiction."

"Presuming he was, indeed, addicted - and, Dr. Wilson, we are not yet convinced that he was - surely there would have been better ways to address the issue without putting Dr. House through that much pain and agony."

"It seemed like the only approach at the time." A lead weight had settled in Wilson's midsection.

"Weren't you worried that he might need some support in his efforts to detox from the Vicodin, and more specifically, some kind of relief from his pain while doing so?"

"Greg could be very determined when he chose to be, and I figured he'd find a way to handle it."

"So how did he handle it?"

"Not well. At one point, several days into the bet, he actually broke his hand to activate the gating mechanism for his pain and give him some relief."

"He broke his own hand?" The panel members conferred again.

Wilson nodded.

"And that desperate act wasn't enough to convince you and Dr. Cuddy that perhaps he might genuinely need pain relief or that yours might not be the best approach?"

"Not really. He was determined, and so were we."

"Did it occur to either of you that, as his friends as well as his physician and employer, that you might be too close to the situation to deal with it objectively?"

"That never crossed my mind." God help him, it really never had.

"Did you, in fact, think about how betrayed he might feel if he found out his best friend was behind what was undoubtedly a difficult week for him?"

"I thought it would not matter too much if we got him off the Vicodin." Although he did remember telling Cuddy that they had done enough damage. Sitting back and watching House go through that miserable week had preyed on him at the time... but not enough to try to get Greg to stop the detox.

"So you were willing to betray the trust of a chronic pain patient, whom you have already admitted had serious trust issues, in order to force him to detox cold turkey, rather than seek advice from either an addiction counselor or a pain management specialist? Or both?"

"If it helped him in the long run, yes."

"And no other courses of action suggested themselves to either of you."

"No."

"Okay, Dr. Wilson. We'll take a short break and meet back here in 15 minutes."


	24. Day 6, 3 pm Wilson 2

**Day Six, 3 p.m.**

During the break, Wilson drank a cup of coffee, and had just enough time to use the restroom before he was due back for the next round of questions. The chair was uncomfortable and hard on his back. He wasn't looking forward to another couple of hours sitting there.

"According to hospital records, in May of 2006, a gunman entered Dr. House's conference room and shot him point blank in the neck and the side. On his way to surgery, Dr. House requested that he be put in a Ketamine coma, which has been known to 'reboot' the systems of some chronic pain patients. Is that correct?"

"Yes, it is." Wilson remembered feeling confused, trying to figure out how House, with his blood seeping out all over the gurney, had had enough presence of mind to ask for the Ketamine… or even how he'd known about such a thing.

"How long was he in the Ketamine coma?"

"A week."

"What happened when he woke up from the coma?"

"His pain was gone. Completely gone."

"This sounds miraculous."

"It was."

"Once his pain was gone, did Dr. House continue to take Vicodin?"

"No. He had no need for it anymore."

"Did he find it difficult to stop taking the drug?"

"He didn't seem to." That was odd. He'd never really considered it before, but House had quit the Vicodin with no problems whatsoever.

The next question echoed where his mind had just gone: "If he was able to stop using the drug so easily, is it possible that perhaps your earlier concerns about Dr. House's alleged addiction were unfounded?"

"I really didn't give it much thought. I was just glad to see him able to move without pain. Plus his mood improved a lot, and he became much more open and more considerate of other people." Wistfully, Wilson pondered those precious few pain-free months, when House seemed much more like the man he'd been before the leg surgery.

"Until the Ketamine wore off."

"Until the Ketamine wore off."

"You were still Dr. House's primary care physician at that point. What did he do when the pain started to return?"

"He went back on the Vicodin. In fact, his addiction got worse."

"Let's be more specific. Did Dr. House tell you, either as a friend or as a patient, that he was experiencing pain again?"

"Yes."

"What was your response?"

"I'm sorry to say that I didn't believe it. I thought he was just looking to get back on the Vicodin, so I suggested that, after all the years he had been self-medicating, he probably couldn't tell the difference between the simple muscle aches and pains of middle age from the returning of his leg pain." Given what happened next, Wilson had to concede that he might have handled things a bit better.

"What did he say to that?"

"Nothing. He said nothing. In retrospect, I think he might have been hurt that I didn't believe him."

In his peripheral vision, Wilson saw the female panelist on his far left roll her eyes, looking disgusted. He felt perspiration begin to bead on his upper lip.

"Did you say or do anything else at that point? For example, did you refer him to a therapist to deal with the disappointment he must have felt at discovering his pain had returned?"

"Greg was never big on psychiatry, so that I knew that wasn't an option, although I think he could have benefitted from therapy at numerous times in his life, even before he went to Mayfield. Of course, later on, therapy was essential."

"We'll get to that shortly. How exactly did you respond when he requested Vicodin again?"

"I… I locked my prescription pad in my desk drawer."

"He saw you do this?"

"Oh, yes." With some embarrassment, Wilson recalled the flourish with which he had waved his prescription pad in House's face before dramatically locking it away. To his great discomfort, he found himself wondering whether, if he hadn't been so sure House was merely looking to get a Vicodin high, if he'd taken House's pain more seriously, if perhaps the whole Tritter thing might have been avoided.

"Was, in fact, his pain returning?"

"Yes, it was, but, as I said, I didn't believe him."

"How long had he been off the Vicodin at that point?"

"More than three months."

"Pain free?"

"Yes."

"What happened next?"

"He broke unto my office, stole my prescription pad and began forging prescriptions for himself."

"How did you find out about his forgery?"

"He antagonized a cop in the clinic, who then busted him. It was a horrible time. The cop was determined to get House's license revoked and have him jailed for peddling drugs." Self-reflection had never been Wilson's strong suit, but these questions were making him reflect, with the benefit of time and distance, on things he'd just as soon forget.

"Do you believe Dr. House was selling drugs?"

"Oh, no. He wouldn't do that. But the cop, Det. Michael Tritter, did find more than 600 Vicodin pills stashed in Greg's apartment."

"Do you know how many pills Dr. House was taking per day at that point?"

"I'm not positive, but his Vicodin intake was quite high. I would estimate that he might have been taking as many as 16-20 Vicodin a day, based on what I saw and what his team members told me."

"Six hundred divided by 20 is 30. Is it unusual for a patient to have two or three months' supply of pain medication - or more - on hand… or for a pain patient to stockpile their medicines?"

"No... not really. But 600 is still far too much."

The woman sitting at the far end of the panel's table on Wilson's left, the one who had rolled her eyes, leaned forwarded and interjected at this point: "By whose standards, Dr. Wilson?"

Wilson was startled by the abrupt question. It took him a minute to respond. "Don't forget, he was getting the pills from forged prescriptions."

She pressed on. "Prescriptions he wouldn't have had to forge if his physician… and best friend… had believed that his pain had returned."

"I suppose so. Forging prescriptions is a felony, though, so I was afraid he would get into even more legal trouble and maybe lose his license. I told Det. Tritter that I had written the prescriptions." Wilson felt himself under attack. His defenses rose.

"Admirable." The word was drawn out slowly. To Wilson's now overly sensitive ears, her tone sounded sarcastic. He felt his face flush again, as the woman forced him to revisit what she seemed to suggest was his own culpability.

"Did you ever ask Dr. House what had happened when he, to use your words, 'antagonized' Det. Tritter?"

"No. I didn't have to. Greg was always abrasive and hated what he called 'the idiots in the clinic,' so I have no doubt he precipitated it in some way."

"You never asked him if Det. Tritter did anything to set off the unfortunate chain of events?"

"No, I didn't. If you knew House as well as I did, you'd know that he was constantly pissing people off."

"Then…?"

"Tritter froze my assets and cut off my prescribing privileges and confiscated my car to try to force us to turn on Greg."

"_Us_? Did he freeze anyone else's assets or prescribing privileges?"

"Yes. His team members' bank accounts were also frozen, although they were able to prescribe." It still stung that he'd had to lie to protect House, who could have ended the whole miserable mess easily if he had just apologized to Tritter.

"Did Det. Tritter get a court order for these actions? Did the DEA review board determine that your prescribing privileges should be restricted?"

"Not that I know of."

The chairman of the panel resumed questioning at this point. "So, apparently, this Det. Tritter was acting out a personal vendetta against Dr. House, for whatever reason, outside the bounds of the law. Were the hospital attorneys or the hospital board informed of what was happening, and if so, how did they respond?"

"I don't know. You'd have to ask Dr. Cuddy that question."

"We will. What happened in response to these developments?"

"Dr. Cuddy felt that if it became unpleasant enough for House, he might come to his senses and settle his differences with Tritter. She was also concerned because Tritter was paying very close attention to how much Vicodin House was taking."

"What kind of unpleasantness did she have in mind?"

"Lisa restricted his Vicodin."

"Did this restriction bring about a physical withdrawal from the medication?"

"Yes, it did."

"So, once again, Dr. Cuddy determined, behind Dr. House's back, to force him to endure a painful withdrawal from his pain medication?"

"In short, yes. Although she continued to let him have Vicodin at the prescribed dosages, about two capsule every six hours."

Wilson noticed the woman - now his nemesis - pursing her lips at his statement, as if she were biting back a comment. The man front and center continued his questioning.

"You said earlier he was taking perhaps as many as 20 pills a day. Two pills every six hours amounts to eight capsules a day; in other words, about a 60 percent reduction. Did anyone help him to taper off?"

"No."

"Was anyone supervising his withdrawal, or helping him with any increased pain?"

"No." Again, Wilson wondered why they hadn't gotten advice from someone who specialized in addiction or pain management. He didn't like these questions; they made him reflect on things he'd rather not think about.

"Did he continue to do his job during this time?"

"Yes, up to a point."

"How did that work out?"

"Badly. He punched one of his fellows, Dr. Robert Chase, and nearly cost a little girl her arm and her leg before Dr. Chase finally solved the case."

"Let me make sure the record is clear about this. While on the higher doses of Vicodin, had Dr. House ever been violent toward any of his fellows?"

The question took Wilson by surprise. Funny how, when you were in the midst of a crisis, it was so easy to lose perspective. "No, he had not."

"Had he ever made such an egregious mistake while on Vicodin?"

"No, I don't think so." House might suggest radical treatments or tests, but never anything so out of line.

"What ultimately happened with this situation?"

"I am a little ashamed to admit that I eventually made a deal with Det. Tritter to get him to back off. If House would go into rehab, Tritter would drop the charges."

"From all accounts, it sounds as if Dr. House was a very stubborn man, and if he genuinely believed that he had done nothing wrong, he might not comply. How did you expect to get him into rehab?"

"In fact, you're right. That's exactly what happened - he wouldn't comply. So Dr. Cuddy and I stopped providing him with Vicodin prescriptions altogether. We hoped he would realize how serious the situation was, and that he needed to go into rehab or Tritter would undoubtedly pursue legal action that might cost Greg his medical license and possibly even result in jail time."

"Dr. House willingly underwent another cold turkey detox?"

"I wouldn't say he was willing."

"Dr. House was forced _against his will_ to detox?"

"Um, yes."

"In all this time, did anyone think to report Det. Tritter to his superiors for his blatant misuse of power?"

"No, not that I'm aware of. We were just trying to handle the situation to the best of our ability."

"Did it work out as you planned?"

"No, it did not."

"What happened?"

"Greg began cutting himself to release endorphins, which he claimed helped with the increased pain."

"After all this, you still believed that addiction was the real problem, not the pain or the physical withdrawal from the Vicodin?"

"Yes. And I still do." _He did, didn't he?_

"Even though he had been forced into an unwilling detox, he continued to refuse to accept the deal you had made with the detective?"

"Pretty much, yes."

"Is it possible that he believed he was in the right, and just wasn't willing to compromise his principles, no matter what the consequences?"

"I guess so." _Like he did with Vogler, _Wilson remembered, _or more recently, in his determination to be with James at the end. House was often willing to deal with the consequences of his actions if he felt strongly enough about it._

"What happened after that?"

"He stole a prescription for oxycontin from the hospital's pharmacy. It was intended for one of my cancer patients, a gentleman who died before the prescription could be filled."

"So Dr. House had now committed another felony in order to get pain relief?"

"Yes."

"What was the sequence of events from that point forward?"

"He downed the entire bottle, along with a bottle of Scotch, in only a few hours."

"A suicide attempt?"

"I... I really don't know."

"You don't know?"

"No, I don't. The only way I found out about the stolen prescription was that I was concerned about him, so I went to his apartment and found him semi-conscious in a puddle of his own vomit on the floor."

"What did you do then?"

"When I found the prescription bottle with my dead patient's name on it, I was so disgusted that I left." Wilson remembered his fury at seeing his patient's name on that bottle. All he could think of at the time was getting away from House.

The panel conferred privately; then the older woman on Wilson's far left spoke up again. Wilson felt his heart drop.

"You left a possibly suicidal man who had ingested an entire bottle of oxycontin plus a bottle of Scotch lying in his own vomit? Did you call 911?"

"No. I just left. I'm not proud of this."

"I would hope not, Dr. Wilson. Your cavalier attitude about this incident concerns me greatly. Surely you know that, according to the statutes of the State of New Jersey, you are legally _required_ to report a suspected overdose and it is mandated that you stay with the patient until medical help arrives. Did you face censure for abandoning your patient… your friend?"

"No, I did not."

"You just left him there?"

"Yes."

"Were you brought up on charges before a medical review board?"

"No, I was not."

"Why do think that is?"

Wilson squirmed uncomfortably. When he answered, he spoke quietly, almost mumbling under his breath. "I never told anyone what happened."

"Sorry. I couldn't hear that. Please speak up."

Wilson swallowed and repeated himself, more loudly this time. "I never told anyone what happened."

"Dr. Wilson, we'd like to see you back here tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock."

Shoulders slumped, Wilson dragged himself from the room.


	25. Day 7, 9 am Dr James Wilson 3

**Day Seven, 9 a.m. - Tuesday**

Wilson didn't sleep well Monday night. He chalked it up to the summer heat and humidity.

After they all got settled in the following morning, the panel chairman resumed the questioning.

"Good morning, Dr. Wilson," said the panel chairman. "I trust you slept well."

"Only so-so," replied Wilson, honestly, wiping perspiration from his forehead. "This heat is miserable." He smiled.

"We heartily agree with that. Let's get to it, shall we? Dr. Wilson, we have heard from some of Dr. House's fellows about the injuries he suffered in a 2008 bus crash and the excessive measures he took to try to save two patients' lives. We have also heard from them that, at the time, he underwent several highly dangerous procedures, including taking physostigmine and undergoing a deep brain stimulation. Would that mesh with your recollections?"

"Yes, it would."

"We understand that he suffered a heart attack from the physostigmine, and that the deep brain stimulation caused seizures and briefly left him in a coma. Is that also correct?"

"Yes it is. He also had a seizure after spending time in a sensory deprivation tank."

"Noted. Could you give us your version of how he came to undergo the deep brain stimulation?"

"When I realized that the patient Greg had been trying to remember was my girlfriend, Amber Volakis, I asked that her body temperature be cooled down to give us more time to find a way to save her life."

"Was this delaying tactic successful?"

"Ultimately, no. When it became apparent that she had systemic failure of her kidneys and heart, and that her brain had been affected, I became desperate to find a way to save her. I asked Greg if he would do the DBS to try to access any buried memories he might have from the bus crash that could help."

"Was the deep brain stimulation your idea?"

"No. Initially, it was Greg's, but Lisa - Dr. Cuddy - refused to approve the procedure, saying that it could be too dangerous for someone who had already had a concussion and a skull fracture, not to mention the heart attack."

"What changed her mind about it?"

"..."

"Dr. Wilson?"

"Actually, we never told her."

"The procedure was done behind Dr. Cuddy's back?"

"Yes, it was." His nemesis rolled her eyes again.

"How did the topic come up again after the first time, when Dr. Cuddy had already expressed her disapproval?"

"When I became desperate enough, I… I asked Greg to do it."

"What was his response to this request?"

"If I remember correctly, he said, 'You want me to risk my life to save hers?' - or words to that effect."

"And you said...?"

"Yes. I said yes." Wilson closed his eyes for a moment, seeing for the first time that traumatic moment from Greg's perspective, as opposed to his own. _What would I have said if he'd asked me to risk my life for Stacy or Cuddy?_ _Would I have been willing to do it?_

"Were you at all concerned about the dangers to Dr. House that Dr. Cuddy had mentioned earlier?"

"I wish I could say that I was thinking clearly enough for that, but I was really too frantic about trying to save my girlfriend to give it much thought."

He suddenly felt sick. It was one thing for him to voluntarily donate part of his liver to his selfish ex-friend, but quite another to be asked to risk his life, not even for a friend, but for the loved one of a friend. _Just how would I have felt if Greg had asked me that same question, if he had made it clear he valued someone else's life over my own? Especially if that someone else was a person Greg had been involved with for only a few months, as opposed to our more than a decade of friendship?_

Knowing what he now knew about just how much House was willing to give up for their friendship, that moment all those years ago took on new meaning. Wilson swallowed convulsively for a moment. After a few deep gasps of air, he felt a little better, which was good, because the questioning continued, despite his own inner turmoil.

"Who actually performed the DBS? Was that you?"

With a start, Wilson pulled his attention back to the questioner. "No. It was Dr. Chase, one of Dr. House's fellows."

"But you were present during the procedure."

"Yes, I was."

"What happened during and after the procedure?"

"House remembered seeing Amber - Dr. Volakis - take amantadine - that's flu medicine - on the bus. Because of her other injuries, it could not be filtered by her kidneys, and there was no way to save her."

"Do you recall if Dr. House said anything to you when he remembered what Dr. Volakis had taken and when he realized the significance of it?"

"Wow. I hadn't thought about this in a long time. He actually apologized to me. He said, 'I'm so sorry.'" _House had apologized. And what had Wilson done to House, his friend who had risked his life to save Wilson's girlfriend? He'd told him they were no longer friends._

"You sound surprised. Was it unusual for Dr. House to apologize?"

"Unusual… but not unheard of." _He had to concentrate, had to focus. He couldn't let these random emotional reactions distract him from the task at hand._

"After that, what happened?"

"Almost immediately after that, Greg had a grand mal seizure. Then he slipped into a coma."

"At what point did Dr. Cuddy become aware of what had happened?"

"I'm not sure. After Amber died, I saw her in House's room. She was holding Greg's hand." _After staring into House's room for a moment, he had just walked away._

"Once Dr. House woke up from the coma, were there any after-effects of his injuries or the DBS?"

"I honestly don't know. For the next two months, I was on bereavement leave."

"So you never checked on Dr. House's condition after that?"

"No. I knew he was in the hospital when I left on my leave, and figured any medical issues would be treated by others."

"Did he attempt to contact you during that time?"

Wilson was startled. He hadn't considered it at the time, but House really had given him space. "No, he didn't."

"So, for all you knew, he was gravely injured… or perhaps even dead?"

Wilson took a sharp breath, feeling as if he was about to vomit. He took a few more deep breaths and tried to regain his composure. "I… I-I assume that if that were the case, s-someone would have told me." But while he was on leave, he hadn't even cared enough to find out.

"Were you still his primary care physician at this point?"

"Technically, yes, I was."

"Then how did he get his prescriptions filled? Were you available to him at all?"

"I don't know what was happening with him medically. I wasn't prescribing for him, nor was I available."

"How about your other patients?"

"Dr. Brown in my department took over their treatment while I was on leave."

"Was Dr. House the only patient under your care who had not been consulting with you in your capacity as an oncologist?"

"Correct."

"And he was the only one of your patients whose medical care you did not provide for while on leave?"

"…Yes. That's accurate."

The woman on the left spoke up. Wilson was beginning to dread hearing her questions.

"I recognize that this must have been a difficult time for you, but I need to ask: Did you face any legal or medical consequences for endangering your friend's life by authorizing such a dangerous and unapproved medical procedure?"

"No, I did not."

"Did Dr. Cuddy put you on suspension or discipline you in any other way?"

"No… I think she knew how traumatic losing Amber had been for me."

The woman continued.

"Only a couple more questions, Dr. Wilson, and then we will break for lunch. We have heard from others that one of Dr. House's approaches to medicine was to keep his distance from patients so that he could retain his objectivity. Do you find it at all.. shall we say, ironic… that in your dealings with Dr. House as your patient, your relationship with him seems to have interfered with your ability to treat his medical conditions objectively?"

"I suppose it is ironic. But he chose me as his physician. It was his choice."

"Yes, of course it was. Just as it was your choice to fulfill that role. But back to my point. It also seems ironic that, of the many serious injuries Dr. House has suffered over the past few years, one of the most severe was a direct result of the DBS, which you yourself requested."

_Yes, it is ironic,_ Wilson thought, although it had not really occurred to him before now. This woman's questions made him extremely uncomfortable. "I guess you're right, but he was willing to do it and, at the time, it seemed to be the only possible way to save Amber's life."

"I assume you thanked your friend profusely for his selfless and life-threatening act."

"House, selfless? That's not how I would describe him." _Really?_ thought Wilson, wincing, as he heard the words come out of his mouth. _Do I really believe that House wasn't selfless? House, who gave up literally everything in his life - his career, his name, his reputation, his income - to care for me when we believed I was dying… do I really believe that man was selfish?_

"Dr. Wilson? Are you there?"

Wilson shook the thoughts away and refocused his attention on the panel.

"What other way but selfless could you describe someone who was willing to risk his life - his brain - for your friendship?"

"I-I don't know." _Wow. House really had risked everything to try to save Amber, and only because his best friend asked him to do it. Why hadn't he seen it this clearly then?_ _He had always functioned on the assumption that House was nothing if not selfish… but perhaps he hadn't read the situation objectively. It was so obvious now, in the light of how House behaved during his recent cancer scare, that House really could be selfless. Remarkably selfless._ "Yes. Sorry. I guess I need to rephrase that. I would have to say that, at that time, I wouldn't have described him as selfless… I think I wasn't seeing things very clearly."

Wilson thrust the thought away again, remembering just how grief-stricken he had been when Amber was dying. Right this minute, in this overheated room, under the harsh fluorescent glare, he couldn't deal with the idea that he could have been so very wrong. He barely heard the next question.

"But you thanked him, I'm sure. Right, Dr. Wilson?"

Wilson opened his mouth, and at first nothing came out. Finally, he cleared his throat. "I'm sure he knew I appreciated it, but I don't believe I ever uttered those words. In fact, I was pretty upset with him at the time. I felt that his recklessness brought nothing but misery to the people around him, and that it had finally gotten someone killed, someone I cared about a great deal."

"What recklessness?" the woman asked him. "The only recklessness I've heard about so far was the reckless way Dr. House disregarded his own well-being to try to save two lives… and the reckless disregard you had for the life and well-being of a friend and patient."

"Be that as it may, he _had_ been drinking before the accident," Wilson replied, suddenly defensive.

"So you equate his drinking with bringing misery and getting your girlfriend killed?"

"Yes, in a way. At least I did at that moment."

"If he had driven his car drunk and she had been killed as a result of that, I could understand your sentiments. Could you please clarify?"

Getting exasperated, and unwilling to go where his uneasy thoughts were leading him, Wilson explained the situation in short, curt phrases. "He was drinking. He called my house for a ride. Amber got the call, went to pick him up, but he refused to ride with her. He took the bus instead, but he was so drunk he forgot his cane. She got on the bus to return it to him… and then the accident happened."

"I see. So it was a chain of unforeseen circumstances that led to her death, only one of which was his drinking?"

"Yes. When I came back from my bereavement leave, I told him that I didn't blame him. But I did feel that if he wasn't such a reckless and self-destructive person, it might not have happened." Wilson suddenly felt the need to justify himself. "I… I was not in a good place at that time, and I certainly wasn't very objective, either about him or about what had happened."

"Is there anything else you'd like to add?"

"No."

"Okay, then we'll take a quick break and reconvene at 11 a.m., Dr. Wilson."

With relief, Wilson left the room.


	26. Day 7, 11 am Dr James Wilson 4

**Day Seven, 11 a.m.**

Wilson was still tense when he returned to the inquiry room after the 15-minute break. He decided to stayed focused and not let stray thoughts distract him.

"Dr. Wilson, let's continue. In November of 2008, Dr. House and Dr. Hadley and several others were taken hostage by a man with a gun, which led to a standoff that lasted several hours."

"That's right. Dr. Cuddy could probably tell you more about what happened, as she was more involved. Or Dr. Hadley. She was one of the hostages." Wilson breathed a sigh as he realized that, for now, the panel was no longer pointing a laser at his own behavior and motives.

"This was the second time a gunman had gotten into the hospital, and both times Dr. House was targeted. Were you at all concerned about hospital security?"

"I guess I should have been."

"But you weren't, even though in one instance, your best friend was shot twice and in the other, a SWAT team blew up part of the hospital to end the standoff?"

"No, I guess I wasn't. The board had some discussion about it, but the general consensus was that they were isolated incidents."

"When the SWAT team went in, was Dr. House injured?"

"Not seriously."

"But he was injured."

"Again, you'd have to ask Dr. Hadley or Dr. Cuddy… I believe the explosion shook him up some. I was out of the hospital when it started, and didn't learn about it until I heard about it on the news."

"In late March of 2009, Dr. House was in a motorcycle accident, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

"Could you tell me the nature of his injuries?"

"They were fairly minor. He injured one arm and hit his head."

"Did you notice any after-effects of this accident on his ability to function professionally or on his personality?"

"No."

"Tell us about Lawrence Kutner."

The panel's line of questioning seemed to be jumping all over the place. Part of Wilson's brain was trying to figure out where they were going with this. "Larry Kutner was one of House's newer fellows, along with Dr. Hadley, Dr. Taub and for a while, Dr. Volakis."

"Was Dr. House particularly close to Dr. Kutner?"

"It was always hard to tell with House, but I think he saw a lot of himself in Kutner."

"In what ways?"

"Dr. Kutner was a risk-taker, thought outside the box and had a real childlike love of games and toys, not unlike House's."

"So you would say they worked well together?"

"As well as House was able to work with anyone."

"What happened to Dr. Kutner?"

"He committed suicide."

"Sorry. We were already aware of the suicide. Let me be clearer. _How _did he commit suicide?"

"He shot himself. In the head. Drs. Foreman and Hadley found the body after he hadn't turned up for work one day."

"Did he leave a note or give anyone an indication that he was contemplating suicide?"

"No, he did not. I think Greg found this very disturbing, and I know for a fact he beat himself up over it. His professional reputation was based on noticing small details, and he felt he should have seen symptoms of Kutner's state of mind and been able to stop him."

"But he didn't have any indication of Dr. Kutner's intentions?"

"No, he didn't. Neither did anyone else."

"When did this happen in relation to when Dr. Volakis died?"

"Dr. Kutner died a few months after the bus crash."

"It was not too long after this that Dr. House admitted himself to Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital. Do you think the two deaths and his feelings of guilt about them might have contributed to his mental deterioration?"

"I'm sure of it. He hallucinated both of them, after all." It had taken him a long time, but after House had committed himself to Mayfield, Wilson had finally become aware that House really had felt guilty about not being able to save Amber, and for being the catalyst that led to her death.

"When did you become aware that Dr. House was hallucinating?"

"A few days before his psychotic break. He told me about it, although initially he didn't want to admit to me that he was hallucinating my dead girlfriend, and insisted that it was merely Dr. Kutner."

"Did you notice anything unusual about his behavior prior to that?"

"Other than telling me that he was having trouble sleeping - which I chalked up to his inability to deal with his emotions over Kutner's death - I can't say that I did. He had always behaved outrageously."

"What happened after he told you about his hallucinations?"

"He asked me to sit in on the differentials and to let him know if he was making any _particularly _off-the-wall medical suggestions."

"You emphasized the word 'particularly.' Is that because his medical suggestions were often off-the-wall?"

"For most doctors, yes. But it worked for him. He thought creatively about medical problems, and sometimes his solutions and treatments were fairly… unusual as well. Although, mostly, he was just lucky."

"Lucky?" Oh, hell. It was _her_ again. "That seems to be a surprising analysis of a man considered one of the greatest medical minds in the world. Why would you say he was lucky?"

"He just made these lucky guesses."

Nemesis continued.

"Lucky guesses? That's seems improbable, given his track record. Isn't it possible that his solutions seemed almost magical to you because you were just not in the same intellectual league as Dr. House?"

Damn. This woman was driving him nuts. He was beginning to hate the way she was forcing him to reevaluate things he had been quite sure of. "Yes, I suppose that's possible." He didn't sound convinced.

The panel chair resumed questioning, and Wilson sighed in relief.

"During this time, other than the hallucinations, did his medical judgment seem to be impaired?"

"Not that I could tell."

"Weren't you concerned that a doctor who had admitted to suffering from hallucinations was continuing to work?"

"Yes. That's why I agreed to sit in on the differentials."

"But you did not report his mental state to anyone else at the hospital."

"No. I'd hoped that it was temporary. I think we both assumed initially it was sleep deprivation."

"Did anything else seem out of the ordinary?"

"Two days before his psychotic break, he made a list of possible causes for his hallucinations, and spent most of the day eliminating them, one by one. He even went so far as to inject himself with insulin, to induce an electrical shock."

"I assume that didn't work?"

"No it didn't. All that happened was that he gave himself a seizure and he fell off the reclining chair in his office."

"Were you there when he had the seizure?"

"No, but I arrived just as it was ending. He had landed face down on his carpet. I called a crash cart right away."

"We understand that he announced to a lobby full of people that he had slept with Dr. Cuddy. Was that around the same time?"

"It was the following day... and I must take some responsibility for that. He told me that Lisa had helped him detox the night before, and that he had slept with her. He seemed quite happy about it, so I encouraged him to declare himself."

His nemesis spoke up again. Wilson made no attempt to hide his exasperation.

"Excuse me, Dr. Wilson, let me interrupt here. Detoxing takes several days. How could he have detoxed _overnight_?"

"I guess I wasn't thinking about the logistics of it. He just seemed so happy."

"Again, Dr. Wilson, there's something about this that doesn't make sense. You knew - in fact, you were apparently the only one who knew - that Dr. House had been suffering from hallucinations for quite some time. In addition, you are a doctor, so you didn't lack medical knowledge about detoxing. Didn't it occur to you that such a rapid detox and his statement to you that he'd had sex with his boss might not have happened in quite the way he told you it had?"

"As I said, he'd always done outrageous things, so I didn't give it much thought."

"There's outrageous, and then there's unlikely or even impossible. You had already seen Dr. House go through two periods of intensive cold turkey detoxing with no medical supervision - in fact, you were partially responsible for one of them - how could you not notice that this was different?"

"I just thought that this time he really meant it."

"And the fact that he didn't seem to be suffering any additional pain this time - that he hadn't broken a hand or cut himself - that didn't strike you as odd?"

"To be honest, I had always assumed that he exaggerated his pain to get attention or to get drugs." _Of course, now he knew differently. During his own über-chemo session, he'd experienced pain that would have made him glad to get any kind of pain medication he could lay hands on. And what had House done? He had shared his precious supply of Vicodin. _

Once again, Wilson thrust an unwelcome thought from him. "I was just pleased that he seemed to have gotten off the Vicodin and was happy. He and Cuddy had always flirted a lot. In fact, I believe they were involved when they were in college together years ago. So this seemed to be a natural outgrowth of that long-standing attraction."

Back to the panel chairman. "Tell us about how that attraction, as you put it, played out in the hospital."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"How did the two of them interact while at work?"

"Are you asking about before or after they became a couple?"

"Let's start with before."

"For a long time, I didn't notice anything other than the boss-employee relationship. But after a few years, it seemed to develop into a bantering, more sexually charged situation. Plus they had always had their little power struggles."

"What kinds of power struggles? Did Dr. House covet Dr. Cuddy's job?"

A burst of laughter escaped Wilson, who just couldn't contain his mirth at the thought. "Oh, God no! He hated that kind of thing. Lisa had to fight with him just to get him to do paperwork. Plus, I never thought he was particularly ambitious."

"So, if he wasn't after her job, what kind of power struggles are you talking about?"

"Well, House, being who he was, always rebelled against authority. I don't know if that came from his very nature, or from his difficult upbringing with his father, who was a Marine… or some combination of the two. Of course, he always fought with her about clinic duty. He just hated it. Sometimes she actually created little games, just to keep him interested enough to do clinic duty."

"What kinds of little games?"

"I heard that once she'd given him 10 dollars for every patient he treated without touching them. It was a silly game, but it worked."

"Anything else?"

"He always pushed the boundaries to get a diagnosis - I remember one time he went into the morgue and shot a corpse in the head."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Yes, he shot a corpse. I honestly can't remember now what the purpose of that was - it did lead to his solving the case - but, needless to say, Lisa was none too happy about it. Other times, he would ask for crazy procedures - some of which turned out not to be so crazy after all - but he'd ask in the most inflammatory way he could, just to get a rise out of her. Or he'd manipulate her into giving him what he wanted."

"One of our other witnesses compared their relationship to a couple of small children, saying that Dr. House was like the little boy who shows a bug to a little girl he likes just to get a response from her. Would that be a fair assessment, in your opinion?"

Nodding his head, Wilson replied, "That's a really good way to describe it. I think he enjoyed tormenting her and getting her really riled up about something. And she riled pretty easily where he was concerned."

"So initially, at least as far as you could tell, their relationship was strictly business?"

"Pretty much, yes. I really had no idea that they had known each other at medical school or that they had had any kind of sexual relationship prior to meeting at PPTH."

"Really? I was under the impression that information was common knowledge."

"No. It only came out later, when they talked about it in front of other staff people. Of course, gossip being what it is, the whole hospital knew in a matter of minutes."

"How did their relationship change over time?"

"Well, I'd have to say that both of them started turning it into a more sexual atmosphere. She wore more provocative clothes; his comments became more sexually oriented."

"Do you feel she was still an effective manager of Dr. House under these circumstances?"

Wilson thought about it a moment. Cuddy was always so adamant that she was the only one who knew how to manage House… but was that actually true? Did she manage him? Did she manage him _well_? Incidents from the past flashed through his mind as he struggled to come up with an answer.

"Well, Dr. Wilson?"

"I… I'm not sure," he finally replied. "I don't know if she was actually an effective manager for him. I know she believed she was, and I think he did, too. I don't really have a basis for comparison, other than when Dr. Foreman took over… or one day when Dr. Cameron stepped in for Lisa while she was out with her adopted daughter. That seemed to go fairly well, but Dr. Cameron wasn't willing to continue that after one day. I think she felt that her previous position working for Dr. House compromised her objectivity."

"Back to Dr. Cuddy…."

"Yes. Sorry. I never really pondered this before, so please bear with me. I think they both enjoyed the push me-pull you aspect of their working relationship, but whether or not that was really conducive to bringing out the best in Dr. House, I'm truthfully not sure."

"Thanks for being so honest, Dr. Wilson. Now, you said that Dr. Cameron filled in for Dr. Cuddy for one day. Did Dr. Cuddy come back to work after that one day?"

"Oh, yes. And she wasn't happy about it at all. In fact, she blamed House because she had to leave her adopted daughter, Rachel, at home and come back to work."

"I'm sorry… did you say she blamed Dr. House? Why not blame Dr. Cameron, who was the one who refused to continue filling in for her after just one day?"

"I… I never thought about it that way." There seemed to be a lot of things he'd never thought about.

"Did Dr. Cuddy attempt to find anyone else to sub for her during that time - or perhaps bring in a temporary administrator from the outside?"

"Not that I know of. She just came back in the day after Cameron had filled in for her, and, boy, was she loaded for bear! She was really out for House for a few days. She blamed him for her having to resume work earlier than she would have liked."

"And how did this blame play itself out?"

"Oh, God. It's like she escalated their usual game-playing to a really nasty level."

"How so? We've already heard some of this before, but we'd like your perspective on it."

"She put Out of Order signs on the elevators so he had to walk up the stairs, she… umm… stole his cane right out from under him - he actually used a mop and bucket for a time, until he got his cane back - she called the power company claiming to be Mrs. House and had his power at home turned off - and it was _cold_ that night! He wound up sleeping, pretty uncomfortably, I might add, on the couch in my office, because his apartment had no heat or electricity. And I guess the worst thing was that she set a tripwire in the entrance to his office."

The panel conferred. Having discussed Cuddy's "pranks" aloud, Wilson realized they sounded much worse to him than they had at the time. He remembered again how he'd gone to Cuddy and told her that she was hurting House, hurting him physically. And he remembered how she hadn't cared. It was not Lisa Cuddy's finest moment.

"Dr. Wilson, although we had already heard about some of these so-called pranks, we find it… stunning that Dr. Cuddy did all of these things to Dr. House, a man in constant physical pain who could barely walk without a cane. These actions could easily have resulted in a lawsuit against her for assault, not to mention violations of the ADA or abuse of her position of authority over him. How did Dr. House react?"

"That was the surprising thing. House, for once, didn't retaliate. He let her get away with it. He never confronted her, never raised his voice in anger about it, and adamantly refused to escalate it. He did nothing in response. Eventually, after I chastised her about it, her sense of guilt seemed to kick in and she apologized to him."

"Would you say that she realized that he had really done very little to deserve this treatment, or how out of proportion her response was?

"I don't know."

To Wilson's great delight, the panel chair changed the direction of the questioning… he was finding it increasingly unnerving to have to face the past. "Do you have an assistant, Dr. Wilson?"

"Yes."

"How about the other department heads at the hospital? Do they have assistants?"

"Yes, they do."

"Did Dr. House have an assistant?"

"No, but he had his team of fellows."

"Who were doctors themselves."

"Yes."

"Was Dr. House the only department head without an assistant?"

"Yes."

"Why do think that was?"

"I assume it was because his was the smallest department."

"Should that have precluded his having administrative support?"

"... I guess not…"

"We've run a bit over, so we'll take a lunch recess, and reconvene at 1:30 p.m."


	27. Day 7, 130 pm Dr James Wilson 5

**Day Seven, 1:30 p.m.**

After eating a turkey sandwich and some chips, Wilson felt somewhat refreshed when he walked back into the stifling inquiry room and took his seat. He was afraid his sense of refreshment was not to last, and he wasn't mistaken.

"Dr. Wilson, tell us what happened after Dr. House returned to work after his stint at Mayfield."

"Darryl Nolan called me and asked me to let House live with me. He felt that House shouldn't be on his own again for awhile."

"Why do you think that was?"

"I guess he was concerned that House might relapse, and probably should be monitored."

"Was there a reason why he came to live with you, rather than you going to stay with him?"

"House didn't have a guest room, so my guess is that Dr. Nolan felt it would be better for House to stay with me. It was always less painful for House to sleep in a bed, rather than on a couch. And with my back problems, the couch wasn't a good option for me."

"Was there any other reason you can think of why it might not have been a good idea for Dr. House to stay at his own apartment?"

Wilson turned the question over in his mind. He'd never really wondered about Dr. Nolan's suggestion that House stay with him, so this was the first time he'd contemplated the reasoning behind the request. "Perhaps he was concerned that House might be tempted in a more familiar surrounding."

"Tempted to use Vicodin again?"

"Yes."

"Is it possible that there might also have been unpleasant memories for Dr. House in his apartment? According to Dr. Nolan's patient records, which he has agreed to share with us, Dr. House had hallucinated in that apartment."

Wilson paused. He tended to take things at face value… unless (he hated to admit to himself) they came from House, in which case he had often assumed the worst.

"I suppose that makes sense."

"So Dr. House stayed in your guest room?"

Wilson blanched. "No, not at first. Initially, he slept… on my couch."

"On your couch? But you just said…"

Wilson interrupted, suddenly trapped by his own inconsistency. "Yes, yes. I know. I probably should have given him the guest room right off… but I didn't. I can't really explain why. Maybe I thought he would be there only for a few nights."

"But eventually, you allowed him to sleep in your guest room?"

Wilson gritted his teeth. Thinking back to his conversation with Nolan, he remembered how hesitant he'd been to have House stay with him at all, how reluctant he'd been to let House into the condo he'd shared with Amber, how he eventually _allowed_ House to use the guest room. How he hadn't even picked House up from Mayfield because he was too busy at work to take the time off, making House take a bus - a _bus _of all things! - back to Princeton. A shadowy, pervading sense of guilt crept over Wilson.

"Yes, I did."

"How did that go? I assume you were happy to see your friend again, and pleased with his progress."

Happy? Had he been happy to see House? Yes, he supposed he had been. Mostly, though, he remembered feeling put upon. And had he even noticed House's progress, if there was any? He couldn't seem to recall. "Initially," he said, "he hadn't wanted to return to PPTH or try to regain his medical license."

"Can you suggest a reason for this?"

"I'm not sure. He seemed to be trying to avoid places that reminded him of his breakdown." _Like his own apartment? _The thought marched right through Wilson's mind unbidden.

"So he did not return to PPTH?"

"Not right away. First, he insinuated himself into a cooking class I was taking - turned out he was a phenomenal cook - and spent the next few weeks compulsively cooking. I remember he told me that he knew he was obsessive, and couldn't take anything on without cranking it up to eleven."

Wilson felt a sinking sensation as his nemesis at the end of the table interjected.

"Dr. Wilson, you haven't answered the original question. Were you happy to see Dr. House, and were you pleased with his progress?"

Wilson was taken aback; he hadn't even realized he'd veered off topic. "I guess I was. Happy, I mean. Maybe, looking back, I wasn't the best friend I could have been at the time. I kind of resented the fact that Dr. Nolan wanted him to stay with me. House could be a handful, and I didn't really feel like playing babysitter."

"Babysitter? Did you see your role in your relationship as being the adult, while Dr. House was the child?"

"Yeah, I suppose so."

"Did he, in fact, relapse?"

"Not that I'm aware of, although Dr. Cuddy and I were very concerned that he might."

"What made you think he might?"

"Well, he had been committed for three months."

"Mostly for severe depression, according to the records."

"Depression? I… I didn't know that." _How could he not know that?_ In his mind's eye, Wilson saw those faxed reports from Dr. Nolan, sitting neatly stacked on his desk. He was sure he'd at least skimmed them, but now he wondered if he had. He sure didn't remember anything about depression, although he recalled a couple of awkward phone calls with Nolan, who kept trying to say something about House's condition and suggesting ways to interact with him in a supportive manner… but he'd been so sure of his own interpretation of House's issues that he'd rejected the psychiatrist's analysis of the situation.

Flushing pink, Wilson felt his thoughts swiftly traversing those early days after House was released from Mayfield, and how he and Cuddy had treated him as a recovering addict, not as someone who had been suffering from severe depression. Once again, it occurred to him that perhaps he'd been a little too smug, a little too sure of himself, and that perhaps his worldview wasn't totally accurate.

"How could you not know?" Nemesis asked. "You were his primary care physician, weren't you? Dr. Nolan has stated that he submitted reports to you."

Wilson reacted defensively. "I… I don't think I ever really looked at them."

His inquisitor looked annoyed, so when the questioning returned to the panel chair, Wilson felt relieved.

"What kind of support did you offer Dr. House during this transition?"

"I kept an eye on him, and when I thought he was using drugs again, I collected some urine from the toilet to test."

Out of the corner of his eye, Wilson saw the woman to his left lean forward even before she spoke. "Did he know about this?"

"Uh… no."

"Excuse me, Dr. Wilson. Had you asked Dr. House if he was tempted to use drugs again? Had you encouraged him to confide in you if he felt tempted? Had you or anyone at the hospital asked him to submit a sample of his urine for testing?"

"No. I just suspected he'd relapsed." _Wow. How judgmental was that? _thought Wilson.

"Based on what evidence?"

"Well, he seemed kind of happy." Wilson remembered coming home to find House sitting on the couch, cheerfully eating ice cream out of the container and watching junky TV.

"So, because your friend seemed happy, you violated his privacy in order to do a drug test?"

"Yes, I suppose you could see it that way. I was concerned about him, and I didn't trust him to tell me the truth."

"Had he given you any reason to suspect he would lie to you about this?"

"Not specifically, at least not at that time, but House's mantra was that 'Everybody lies.' And God knows, House lied _a lot_."

The chairman intervened. "Was his urine sample clean of drugs?"

"Yes… but it wasn't his urine. It belonged to a Labrador retriever."

Someone on the panel suppressed a snort of laughter.

"A dog's urine? It sounds as if Dr. House was a step or two ahead of you, that he figured out that you didn't trust him and thought he'd play a practical joke on you."

"I was pretty pissed off about it - I broke my toilet getting that sample."

Another suppressed chortle escaped into the stale air of the room. Wilson didn't appreciate it.

"Did you tell Dr. House you suspected him?"

"Yes. Lisa and I confronted him about the dog urine."

"And what was Dr. House's response?"

"He… well, he actually seemed hurt that I had gone behind his back, that I hadn't just asked him if he was using." It occurred to Wilson that perhaps House had been disappointed in him, after… maybe… hoping Wilson wouldn't go so far in his suspicions that he would discover the dog urine in the toilet. Wilson had distrusted House about his possible drug use, and had been wrong in his assumptions, while House had distrusted that Wilson would have confidence in him, would support him… and been right to do so.

_Oh, crap._ His nemesis again.

"Dr. Wilson, can you think of any reason why he _wouldn't _feel hurt that his best friend had distrusted him to that extent?"

"Well, he was House. House didn't do hurt. And he did lie and manipulate."

"He did _do_ hurt? What does that mean? Surely, you aren't saying that you think Dr. House had no feelings? If that's what you sincerely believe, it sounds like the corollary in your mind is that, since he had no feelings, it was all right to say or do anything to him, because it wouldn't matter. Is that what you believed?"

Words caught in Wilson's throat. He managed to mumble, "I-I…" before his throat closed up altogether and nothing else would come out. Suddenly very aware of the heat in the room, he wiped his brow and took a drink of water, hoping that would help.

Despite his intention to remain focused, Wilson felt his mind wander far away, to those horrible months following House's leg surgery, after Stacy left. Quite clearly, he could see the House of his memory wrestling with the devastating changes in his life, with the physical pain in his leg, with the emotional desolation of Stacy leaving him. Wilson had held House as he'd cried out in pain, or in emotional anguish. He remembered warning Cameron, before the date she'd finagled, to be careful with House, because he was so emotionally fragile.

How had he gone from protecting House so fiercely to believing that House had no feelings? Yes, House had put up thick barriers around him, had made himself as unpleasant as possible, pushed the limits of their friendship - maybe to see if Wilson would still stand by him _-_ now, _that _was an miserable thought - but had Wilson really become that callous in his treatment of the man he considered his best friend that he had actually come to believe the front that House put up? He _knew_ better than that, didn't he?

One of Wilson's favorite films was _The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance_. At the end of the film, after Jimmy Stewart has become a hero for something John Wayne had actually done, a reporter says to him, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Had he essentially done the same thing to House? Had he gotten sucked into House's deep-seated fear of people, his need to keep everyone at arm's length, and thereby come to believe the legend that House was nothing but an ass with no feelings?

Questioning reverted back to the panel chair, who didn't appear to notice how distracted Wilson had become, and who thoughtfully changed the subject away from the one that was causing Wilson considerable inner turmoil.

"What kind of pain management was Dr. House on during this time?"

"He was taking NSAIDs."

"That's all?"

"As far as I know."

"How was his pain?"

"I'm not sure. It's not something we ever talked about."

"But you were still his primary care physician, weren't you? Shouldn't you have asked him, as a physician, if not as his friend, whether his pain was being managed appropriately?"

"I figured he'd come to me if he had a problem."

_Oh, God. Not her again_, he thought as the female voice interjected. He was starting to feel like a ping-pong ball, bouncing back and forth between the panel chair and this woman, whose questions led him into dark and murky places he'd rather not go.

"Didn't you tell us earlier that Dr. House had once come to you about his returning pain after the Ketamine treatment failed, and you hadn't believed him, which precipitated the whole fiasco with Det. Tritter? And didn't you just say that you suspected he was 'using' again and that he seemed hurt when you hadn't asked him directly about it?"

He really didn't want to answer, but he knew he had no choice. "Yes." _But_, said a little voice in his mind, _I didn't make Greg forge those prescriptions. That was his choice._ House didn't always make the best decisions in his personal life, but that one was so egregious. _Why had he forged those prescriptions? And why hadn't he gone to another doctor for pain meds… or confronted me when I refused to prescribe for him? Why hadn't he? Why hadn't he?_ _Why hadn't he? _Wilson wished he had the answers, wished he and House had talked about it calmly at the time, so he could understand exactly what had happened, and why House had made the terrible choices he'd made at the time.

"I would have thought you'd be concerned enough, both as a physician and as a friend, to have at least asked him if his pain was bearable."

Wilson sighed, drawing himself out of the uncomfortable past and into the equally uncomfortable present. "The only time he mentioned anything that I remember was in the middle of the night when I found him cooking in the kitchen. He said he was cooking because his leg hurt and he couldn't sleep."

The chairman: "Did anything else happen while Dr. House stayed with you?"

"Oh, the usual. He annoyed the neighbors, yanked my chain."

"How did he annoy the neighbors?"

"The downstairs neighbor thought he walked too heavily and found the sound of his cane disruptive. House also played his guitar."

"Loudly?"

"Not especially, but loudly enough."

"How did you respond when he 'annoyed' your neighbor?"

"I told Greg he needed to leave."

"You tried to kick him out? Did you speak to the neighbor, and perhaps explain Dr. House's physical disability? Did you speak to Dr. Nolan about the situation?"

"No, I did not." _Why hadn't he? That would have been the humane thing to do._

"Where would Dr. House have gone if you had kicked him out? Did you try to find him someone else to stay with?"

"No, not really - he didn't have anywhere else to go. I assumed he would go back to his apartment… which is what he ultimately did."

"Couldn't he have stayed with one of his former fellows? Several of them have said they felt close to him. Plus we have talked to other friends of his, who might have taken him in if asked."

Wilson was startled. He thought people tolerated House, at best. It had never once dawned on him that any of them actually liked the man, much less considered him a friend. He suddenly remembered, with a creeping sense of shame, how he had paid House's fellows to spend time with House so he could share private time with Sam.

"I didn't find out if he could have stayed with anyone else. I didn't really plan that far ahead."

Ping pong. Back to the lady on the left. Wilson knew this was not going to be good. "So you were willing to abandon your friend, who had just been through a pretty harrowing experience, in part because your neighbor objected to the sound of his cane on the floor, without trying to resolve the situation, without trying to find someone else for him to live with, or without even checking with his psychiatrist to see if Dr. House would be safe living on his own?"

"When you say it that way, it sounds pretty bad."

"It's not _good_, Dr. Wilson. Do you think you were a good friend to Dr. House?"

"I was his only friend."

"Again, not according to his former fellows or others we have spoken with. Apparently several of his fellows did think of him as a friend as well as their boss."

This was news to Wilson, who spent the next few seconds turning the idea over in his mind.

"Dr. Wilson… Dr. Wilson!"

Startled out of his reverie, Wilson looked up when the panel chair called his name.

"Did anything else of note occur while Dr. House lived with you?"

"As I mentioned before, he yanked my chain."

"In what way?"

"In grief counseling, I had heard about a technique - in bed at night, I whispered to Amber - my girlfriend who had died - talking to her about what I'd done that day."

"How did this affect Dr. House?"

"He claimed to have been spooked and thought he needed to return to Mayfield."

"Where was Dr. House sleeping at this point? Was he still on the couch?"

"No, I had set him up in the spare room."

"So he had his own space, but it was still in the apartment you had shared with the woman whose death he felt considerable guilt over."

"Yes, that's correct."

"I'm sure he appreciated having a space to call his own, especially after three months sharing a room at Mayfield and some period of time sleeping on your couch."

"I wouldn't know about that. I gave him a bed, but he didn't really have many of his own things with him. I was afraid to let him go back to his apartment by himself too much, in case there was still Vicodin there that Dr. Cuddy and I hadn't found." _But I had no trouble shipping House off to that same apartment when it became inconvenient to have him around_, thought Wilson. And he had never bothered to go through the place with House to see if any Vicodin remained. _Damn! _He really could be a hypocrite at times.

"How was the room decorated? Did he have his own bedclothes, closet space, etc.?"

"It was pretty much the way it had been when I used it as an office after Amber had died. There were bookshelves and photos."

"Just for clarification, were they his own books and photos - ones he'd brought with him - or are you referring to your belongings?"

"No. They were mostly pictures of Amber that I had taken, plus a few of the two of us together."

"You didn't think to clear those out before Dr. House moved into the room?"

"No, why would I?"

"Are you telling us that you really didn't see a problem in having Dr. House share a room with photos of your dead girlfriend, whose death had been a contributing factor in the depression that kept him in Mayfield for three months?"

"I… I didn't really know that's why he'd been there." This was getting worse and worse.

"You said that before. But you did know that he had hallucinated Dr. Volakis. Didn't it occur to you that sharing space with her photos might make it difficult for Dr. House?"

"No, it didn't." _But it should have, shouldn't it?_ thought Wilson. He was so used to thinking of House as an insensitive jerk that it had never dawned on him before that he might be pretty insensitive himself.

"Back to your story. Dr. House was trying to sleep in your converted office, surrounded by pictures of Dr. Volakis, and you were in, what, the next room whispering to her?"

"Essentially, yes."

"And Dr. House claimed to have been disturbed enough by this to consider returning to Mayfield?"

"That's what he said, but I was sure he was yanking my chain."

"Not according to Dr. Nolan, who says that Dr. House was so shaken that he was preparing to recommit himself to Mayfield."

Wilson was shocked. Flat-out, without reservation, shocked. "Dear God… I-I… I don't know what to say… except that I truly _believed _he was yanking my chain."

"Why would he do that?"

"It was in his nature." He corrected himself. "I _felt_ it was in his nature."

His nemesis spoke up. Match point.

"It concerns me, Dr. Wilson, that you were apparently behaving in a way that was clearly counterproductive to Dr. House's recovery, and insisted on blaming him when he came to a fairly natural conclusion - that he was hallucinating again."

Wilson sighed. "No, it wasn't like that at all. I thought he was messing with me."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because that's what he did. He messed with people."

Her eyes narrowed. "Just because he messed with people doesn't preclude the fact that he could have been genuinely disturbed by hearing a whispered voice every night as he lay trying to sleep in a room surrounded by pictures of the very woman he had already hallucinated."

Wilson had never considered it. "I… I suppose you're right." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. They were venturing into deep emotional waters again, and he was finding that he had some things to answer for.

His nemesis gestured for the panel chair to resume questioning, which made Wilson sigh in relief. Fortunately, the panel chair decided it was time for a 15-minute break. "Let's pause here, and come back at 3:15."


	28. Day 7, 315 pm Dr James Wilson 6

**Day Seven, 3:15 p.m.**

Wilson barely had enough time to grab a cup of coffee and use the bathroom before it was time to return to the panel chambers. The chairman picked up where they had left off. "You changed addresses while Dr. House stayed with you, did you not?"

"Yes, I did."

"How did that come about?"

"I finally decided that it wasn't healthy for me to stay in the place Amber and I had shared."

"Or for Dr. House?"

"Or for Dr. House." Although he hadn't really considered House's reaction to living in Amber's apartment when he had made the decision.

"So you found another place big enough for the two of you?"

"Yes. I bought a condo."

"We understand this was a condo that Dr. Cuddy had been interested in buying."

"Yes, it was. But I outbid her."

"Why?"

"I was annoyed with her for the way she was behaving about House. I felt she was hurting him, and I guess I wanted to get back at her." _How about how he himself was hurting House… repeatedly, apparently?_ It dawned on Wilson for the first time that, just because House was often obnoxious and never expressed his feelings over how Wilson had treated him, it didn't mean he had no such feelings. And just because Wilson generally had good intentions, didn't mean he always did the right thing. The road to hell…

"So you informed her that you had outbid her?"

"Actually, no, I didn't. I never told her outright I had bought the place."

"Didn't that kind of defeat the purpose in buying the condo to get back at her?"

"No, because _I_ knew why I'd bought it."

"So you bought it for yourself and Dr. House?"

"Yes."

"You said that you were annoyed with Dr. Cuddy for the way she was behaving. How was she behaving?"

"She was leading House on, all the while she was fooling around with someone House had actually considered a friend. Plus she seemed to be going out of her way to hurt him."

"We understand some unpleasant incidents took place in that condo."

"Yes. Dr. Cuddy's boyfriend, a private investigator named Lucas Douglas, whom I mentioned a moment ago, kept breaking in. He apparently blamed House because Dr. Cuddy had not gotten the condo."

"But buying that condo wasn't Dr. House's doing, was it? Had he encouraged you to buy it?"

"No. I made that decision on my own. Then I informed him that we were moving."

"So this Lucas Douglas broke in several times, causing damage in the thousands of dollars, as we understand it, as well as loosening the handicapped grab bar by Dr. House's tub, which caused him to injure his head. Is that right?"

"Essentially, you are correct, although it was my tub, not House's. He didn't have a tub."

"I'm sorry. You bought a condo, in part, for your disabled friend to live in, but it didn't come with a tub in his bathroom?"

"No, just a shower. I told him to use that, and to stay out of my tub." Wilson grimaced a bit at how harsh that sounded. He'd never really intended to be unfair about the tub; he'd just gotten caught up in things and hadn't noticed how inconsiderate he'd been.

"Give us a moment." The panel chair quickly sifted through the papers in front of him. Finally, he found what he'd apparently been looking for. "In your own medical records about Dr. House, you have mentioned a few times that soaking in a hot tub really helped soothe the pain in his leg. Why would you not either give him the room adjoining the bathroom with the tub nor allow him to use the tub?"

Guilt suddenly overwhelmed Wilson. "I… I figured I'd bought the condo, so I should be able to choose the master bedroom if I wanted to. When I found him in the tub one morning, I felt he was infringing on my privacy."

"But the tub had a grab bar?"

"Which House installed."

"I'm at a loss, Dr. Wilson… but proceed with the Lucas Douglas situation."

"At first, I accused House of pranking me by putting a possum in the tub. After the grab bar was loosened, he thought I was getting even, although he knew he hadn't been responsible for the possum. House… and I… eventually realized it was no prank war between the two of us when the sprinkler system went off one night, destroying a lot of our property and causing some serious damage in the condo."

"Then what happened?"

"Eventually, Lucas came clean, after he tripped House in the hospital cafeteria."

"Were there other people present when this happened?"

"Sure. The cafeteria was full at the time."

"How did Dr. House react?"

"He didn't. I wanted him to retaliate, but he wouldn't."

"How did Dr. Cuddy react to the news that her boyfriend was terrorizing you?"

"We never told her, although the incident in the cafeteria must have been on the security video, and I'm sure word got around the hospital really quickly."

"Did you file charges against Mr. Douglas for breaking and entering, or for felony vandalism in damaging your property? In addition, you probably could have made a decent case for assault, given the grab bar situation."

"No. As I said, House chose not to do anything about it."

"So, as when Dr. Cuddy played what you have called 'pranks' on Dr. House, he chose not to retaliate?"

"That's correct."

"This seems to be a pattern with Dr. House. From what we've heard, he often chose to be fairly high-minded when attacked by people he considered friends. Would you agree?"

Wow. Wilson suddenly flashed back on the number of times House had refused to retaliate. All he'd ever really focused on were the times House had escalated things… such as when he got even with that guy he knew from med school - what was his name? - who had the migraine treatment. Maybe House had sometimes been more mature than Wilson had given him credit for. "I guess you're right," was all he could think of to say. He was flabbergasted by the effect this revelation had upon him.

"How did Dr. Cuddy behave toward Dr. House at this time?"

Wilson shook his head to clear his thoughts. "She seemed really annoyed with him, and she felt - not totally unjustifiably - that he was trying to interfere in her relationship with Lucas. She even went so far as to send him on a wild goose chase, rather than allow him to come to Thanksgiving dinner at her place."

"Tell us about that wild goose chase, Dr. Wilson, from your perspective."

"She sent him to her sister's place upstate, when she was really hosting Thanksgiving at her own home in Princeton."

"So he drove, on Thanksgiving, to the wrong location?"

"Yes. It was about three hours away. When he got there, the housekeeper gave him a turkey sandwich."

The panel conferred once again. Wilson noticed frowns on their faces.

"We're speechless, Dr. Wilson."

"It wasn't a very nice thing to do, although House _had_ been making a nuisance of himself."

"No, we agree. It wasn't a nice thing to do. Did you confront Dr. Cuddy about this incident?"

"No, I did not." And why was that, exactly? Wilson couldn't remember.

"So why did Dr. House stop staying with you? Did Dr. Nolan tell you he felt Dr. House was ready to be on his own?"

"No… no, he didn't. I had started seeing my ex-wife, and we wanted some privacy."

"Did you check with Dr. Nolan before you asked Dr. House to leave?"

"No. I didn't think it was necessary."

"You've already stated that, in the previous instance, when you nearly evicted Dr. House from your other apartment, you didn't help him to find another place for him to stay. Would that be true as well when you actually asked him to leave for real?"

"Yes." _Damn._ This was getting more and more awful.

"Where did Dr. House go?"

"Back to his apartment."

"But you just stated that you were concerned he might still have drugs there. Did you accompany him, check it out, make sure he settled in all right?"

"No. He simply moved out, and moved back in to his old place."

"Where he had hallucinated, and had other unpleasant memories."

"Yes, I guess so."

"I think that's enough for today. We'll reconvene tomorrow morning and pick up with Dr. Wilson's testimony then."

Wilson left the room weighed down by the thoughts conjured up by his testimony, and dreading the day ahead.


	29. Day 8, 9 am Dr James WIlson 7

**Day Eight, 9 a.m. - Wednesday**

During a long, sleepless night, the sheets hot and clammy against his skin, Wilson just couldn't get comfortable, no matter what he did. By the time Tuesday's miserable day of testifying had ended, Wilson was so stressed out that he could barely remember his own name, much less some of the details of what had taken place years ago.

He hated being put on the spot. When under pressure, he never seemed to think of the things he might have said in his own defense. Instead, his mind went blank, his heart pounded, and he just couldn't pull his thoughts together. Of course, after testifying, once he got home, had some dinner and relaxed a bit, he began the whole "What I _should _have said was..." conversation in his head. He'd had the same problem with oral exams in school.

Throughout the endless night, his mind was whirling, and his stomach wasn't too far behind. He'd always tried to do what was right for House, to help him, but what if his help wasn't actually all that helpful? What if some of the things he'd done and said had instead been harmful? And what if he'd gotten so caught up in his own perceptions of things that he couldn't see what was right in front of his nose?

These revolutionary ideas made him desperately uneasy. As he tossed and turned, Wilson came to the realization that he couldn't keep ignoring this nagging voice inside… the one telling him that, just because you loved someone like a brother, it didn't mean you always knew what was right for that person. Sometimes you could do or say something with the best of intentions… and it could turn out terribly wrong, damaging the person you loved most. Or you could overlook the positive in someone because you had become so convinced of the negative. Once again, he thought: _The road to hell._

Maybe his view of House had gotten skewed over the years… and maybe his view of himself had, also. Maybe he hadn't been the better person, at least not all the time, and maybe his attempts at "improving" House hadn't been particularly constructive… or even very nice. Maybe… just maybe… he'd let House down as often as House had let him down. The difference was… and this was another new idea for Wilson… that House usually hadn't kept rubbing his face in it when he, Wilson, was being an unmitigated jerk. House had just acknowledged it - or ignored it - and moved on.

It's never easy to have to face ourselves as others see us, but this panel and its difficult questions had put Wilson in just that position. They held up a mirror in front of him, and the image he saw reflected in it wasn't the person he thought he was. In fact, he found some of what he was being forced to revisit painfully unflattering. It was deeply disturbing to be forced to review some of those moments in his past when he'd felt so confident of his beliefs and actions… and to find that maybe… just maybe… he had made some serious errors in judgment.

After a restless night, consumed by these disconcerting thoughts and regrets, Dr. Wilson dragged himself back into the dark, stuffy room and reseated himself on the hard chair across from the panel. He felt wrung out emotionally, and hoped today's proceedings would go better than yesterday's.

It started out innocently enough. "Dr. Wilson, could you tell us about anything you might have observed about how Dr. House and Dr. Cuddy came to be involved in a sexual relationship?"

_Whew,_ he thought. _This was safe enough. _"House had been interested in Cuddy for a long time… and it appeared to be mutual. After he was released from Mayfield, I encouraged him to pursue her more seriously. Of course, neither of us knew that she was already involved with Lucas Douglas."

"She didn't tell Dr. House about her relationship?"

"No, she didn't. She didn't tell me, either. In fact, I thought she kept flirting with House for quite some time after he left Mayfield, and then, all of a sudden, she seemed to cut him off once he returned to work." Yet another thing he'd failed to notice while it was happening. Wilson saw several of the panel members making notes.

"How did Dr. House find out about her relationship with Mr. Douglas?"

"Well, that was really embarrassing. I was speaking at a conference, and I felt he wasn't safe to be on his own, so I insisted that he come along. He was hesitant until he found out that Cuddy was going to be there, too. At one of the events, the two of them shared a romantic dance, but afterward, when I talked to Lisa about it, she told me that she couldn't see getting involved with House, because she felt he would never be responsible enough to be a good father figure for her little girl. She never mentioned Lucas."

"Then what happened?"

"I suggested that House offer to babysit, as a way to show her he could, indeed, be responsible. When he got to her hotel room, he found Lucas there, playing with little Rachel."

"That must have been awkward, to say the least."

"I'm sure it was. Greg really didn't want to talk about it when he returned to our room, but I think he felt humiliated."

"Was he angry with you for encouraging him?"

"No, he didn't seem to be."

"Did anything else happen on that trip?"

"Well, he drugged me."

"I beg your pardon?"

"He drugged me. He'd found out that I was planning to speak about euthanasia… about the hard choices doctors are sometimes forced to make, using my own patients' end-of-life issues as case studies. Apparently, he thought I would destroy my career if I made the presentation, so he drugged me, and then gave my speech under a pseudonym."

"So, in essence, in a peculiar sort of way, it sounds as if he was trying to save your reputation and your career, and still get your message out to those attending the conference."

"Yes, although initially, I didn't see it that way. I was quite angry with him."

"Did anything else happen on that trip?"

"The following morning, we had breakfast with Cuddy and Lucas."

"How did that go?"

"Surprisingly well, actually, at least up to a point. House was on particularly good behavior. He was actually quite civil to Lucas."

"Would you say he was taking the high road?"

"I… I guess he was. I know it doesn't look particularly good for me, but I have tended to see House as someone who was incapable of functioning as an adult, someone who needed constant advice and supervision. The questions you asked during the last two days of proceedings have gotten me thinking about things… I may have… no… I _did _misjudge him. For a really long time, in fact."

"It's good of you to admit that, Dr. Wilson. Now, you said the breakfast went well _up to a point_. Did something occur during that meal you think might be pertinent?"

Wilson hesitated, because he didn't care to implicate Cuddy. But it _was _pertinent, so he went ahead. "I hate to have to mention this, because I consider Lisa Cuddy a friend, but during breakfast, Lucas tried to provoke House by talking about his commitment to Mayfield and that delusion he'd had about Cuddy."

"How would Mr. Douglas have known about that?"

"There was just one way he could have found out, especially about the delusion, and that was from Lisa. She and I were the only ones who knew about that, other than the staff at Mayfield."

"Are you saying that she told her boyfriend - who was, in a way, Dr. House's romantic rival - about confidential medical information pertaining to House's psychiatric history?"

"I'm sorry to say that I am. There's no way to avoid saying that Lisa had violated HIPAA regulations. She never should have shared House's private medical information for nonmedical reasons, and she certainly knew better, because she administrated the HIPAA statutes for PPTH."

Several panel members made notes again as he spoke; he felt vaguely sick for bringing it up. The penalties for a HIPAA violation of this type were extreme: Cuddy faced a potential fine of as much as $1.5 million and possibly even a jail sentence. Fortunately, the panel didn't give him time to dwell.

"Moving forward… How did you discover that Dr. Cuddy and Dr. House had entered into a relationship?"

"It was a couple of days after the Trenton accident. They came into my office and announced it to me."

"What was your reaction to this news?"

"I was surprised, to say the least. They hadn't exactly been getting along lately, so at first I thought House was pulling my leg, but then Lisa confirmed it." He'd been quite sure, in fact, that they were pranking him. The day before, after he had entered House's apartment through the kitchen window, he had even been concerned House was having another breakdown when he had insisted he and Cuddy were involved.

"How would you describe their relationship?"

"House had always had a romantic streak in him… he tended to fall hard when he fell in love. For him, it was all or nothing. I mean, he and Stacy had started living together almost as soon as they met, and he was clearly thrilled to finally have a relationship with Lisa. For a few weeks, he seemed almost dazed by his good fortune."

"You say he was romantic. Could you give us some examples of this romanticism?"

Wilson felt tightness settle in his chest as he thought back on House's romantic gestures. Why had it always ended so badly for him? "The first thing that comes to mind," he said, "was when Lisa was having her office redone, years before they got together as a couple. He arranged with her mother to have her desk from college restored and shipped to PPTH as a surprise."

"That _is_ pretty romantic. How did she react?"

"I don't know. Neither of them ever mentioned it."

"Any other romantic gestures that you can think of?"

"Well, let's see… he had spent literally years tracking down a book written by her great-grandfather, who was also a doctor. It was something about the 'Acute Abdomen' - I can't recall the exact title. He held onto that book for a very long time, waiting for just the right time to present it to her. He finally gave it to her as a gift when he believed that she and Lucas were moving in together. Turns out they'd actually gotten engaged that morning… the morning of the Trenton building collapse."

"That's a pretty magnanimous gesture from someone who must have seen himself as a failed suitor, don't you think? Do you know how she reacted to that gift?"

"I never heard anything from Greg about it. At the time, Lisa never mentioned it to me either. Later on, after she broke up with House, she told me that when he gave it to her, she was distracted by the details pertaining to the Trenton crash. And then during the day, as she thought about it, she hadn't been sure that he might not be scamming her in some way… somehow using the book as a way to break up her relationship."

"How could she perceive such a thoughtful gift was a scam?"

"I really don't know. It doesn't make much sense. I just know that's what she told me."

"So you would definitely describe Dr. House as a romantic," the panel chair reiterated.

"Yes. Absolutely. He might not have believed in God or the afterlife, but he definitely believed in love. I think some small part of him always hoped he would finally be loved in return, loved unconditionally. The only problem was that he never seemed destined to find that kind of love. He was always let down, always betrayed. Even in his friendships - and I have to include myself in that category - he was always let down. And the more he was let down, the more closed off and hard-edged he became."

"Thank you, Dr. Wilson. Let's take a quick break, and meet back here in 15 minutes."


	30. Day 8, 11 am Dr James WIlson 8

**Day Eight, 11 a.m.**

After the panel, the reporter and Wilson had settled themselves back in following the break, the questioning continued.

"Before they broke up, would you say that Gregory House and Lisa Cuddy were a good couple, a happy couple?"

Wilson struggled to reconcile what he'd believed at the time with what he'd reflected upon since then. He remembered how unyielding Cuddy had been after the breakup, how unwilling she had been to try to rectify such a horrible situation. It wasn't just that she wouldn't get back together with Greg - he hadn't really expected that to happen, although he'd hoped she'd be more understanding and give him one more chance - but she wouldn't intervene when he was so clearly in trouble because of the way she'd broken up with him. "I… I don't know. When they were together, I guess I thought they were happy. But now I'm not sure."

"Why not?"

"When they first got together, she told him she didn't want him to change. After they broke up, she admitted that she'd been wrong… she had wanted him to change. Even fairly early on in their relationship, that was pretty apparent. She couldn't seem to accept him the way he was. She was constantly nagging him about something or other, forever on his case about things. Some of it was work - she definitely brought their personal relationship into the workplace - and some of it was personal between the two of them. I think, to be fair to her, her expectations were so high that no one could ever possibly live up them. And God knows Greg tried. He really, really tried."

"Could you give us an example of how she brought their relationship into the workplace?"

"To do that, I'll have to give a little history of how they had worked together before."

"Proceed."

"House had always played games with her, sometimes even lying to her so he could treat a patient the way he saw fit. I mean, if he suspected that she would turn down a specific test or treatment, he might lie to her about it and then do an end run. But after they got together, when he did exactly the same thing - and, by the way, saved the patient doing it - she behaved like a junior high princess about it. She got very worked up, really out of proportion to what he'd done. For days, she pouted and glared at him - gave him the cold shoulder - until he finally apologized and swore he'd never lie to her again. Of course, given his nature, that wasn't very realistic."

"So you might say that she expected him to behave differently at work once they were a couple than she had before they got together?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

"Any other examples you'd care to share with us?"

"Of course, there was the whole thing with her mother."

"We've heard a little about that, but would you give us the background?"

"Sure. Lisa had always believed her mother was a hypochondriac, and had dismissed her medical issues. Lisa assigned the case to Greg. At first, he felt it wasn't his kind of case, and he accused her of being too emotionally invested. But she wouldn't budge. She wanted him to treat her mother, and he gave in, but believed it was mostly hypochondria. Arlene - that's Cuddy's mother - got annoyed at House and refused to keep him on as her doctor. If I remember correctly, then her mother got genuinely sick, and no one knew why, so naturally, Lisa insisted that House stay on the case, but on the sly."

"What happened then?"

"He was uncomfortable going behind Arlene's back that way and didn't want to stay on the case at all because he felt the emotions involved would create problems - which they certainly did - but Lisa insisted. Finally, when things got very bad, he confronted Lisa and told her she needed to come clean with her mother, which eventually led the two of them to reconcile and House to diagnose her illness."

"It sounds as if you're saying she used her position as his supervisor to influence their relationship… and used their relationship as a tool to get what she wanted from him at work."

"I think that's a fair assessment."

"How would you describe the relationship as a whole?"

"I hate to say this, but it seemed like the longer they were together, the more she asked of him, and the more he had problems meeting her needs. I'm not saying he was perfect… God knows, he wasn't. He was always unconventional, and anyone who expected him to be the typical boyfriend was in for a rude - literally rude - awaking. But this relationship meant so much to him that, as I understand it anyway, he actually told Lisa that if he had to, he would always choose her over his career… and his career had meant everything to him. He had really gone into the relationship 100 percent, and suddenly he was compromising and sublimating his own needs constantly, but she seemed unwilling to compromise on anything… she somehow felt she had to control absolutely everything. It was a recipe for disaster."

"How did the relationship end?"

"_Very _unpleasantly. She had come to me after finding blood in her urine, and I had thought she had terminal cancer. House was absolutely terrified. I kept pressuring him to go be with her, but he was so afraid of losing her that he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He became immobilized by his fear. He made sure she was taken care of, sent his best people in to be with her, but he couldn't seem to get it together to go sit by her side. I feel kind of responsible, because I just wouldn't let up on him, and finally he did go to her." Wilson felt his mind drift once again. Could this have been another time when his advice wasn't presented in the best possible way? Was lecturing House to try to get him to Cuddy's side really the best way to achieve the result he was after?

"Then what happened?"

He shook off the thoughts. "Somehow, she figured out that the only way he could have gotten himself to her side was if he had numbed himself out with Vicodin. Although he admitted that he had taken one pill - just one pill - she cut him loose, and was never willing to give him another chance after that. She simply cut him off with no warning. One minute they were together, and then, nothing. The ironic part was that he had taken that Vicodin, sacrificed his sobriety, because he was so very afraid of losing her. And then, because he had done so, that's _why _he lost her. He had been completely invested in their relationship, even if he hadn't expressed it well. I don't think she ever was. She expected him to stop being who he was, to compromise both personally and professionally."

"Then what happened?"

"The downward spiral really began at that point."

"Let me make sure I understand this. Despite his extreme leg pain, Dr. House had been able to stay off the Vicodin since he had been at Mayfield. Is that correct?"

"Yes, as far as I am aware."

"And after, what, a year or so, under extreme duress, he had a relapse, which is not uncommon for people who have a dependence on drugs or for someone in that kind of extreme pain. Is that also correct?"

"Yes, that's right."

"But because of this one lapse, Dr. Cuddy ended their relationship?"

"Yes."

"How did he react to the breakup, in your opinion?"

"He reacted badly. Very badly. He checked himself into a five-star hotel, got loaded on alcohol and Vicodin, spent days with assorted hookers, jumped off a balcony into the pool… I swear to God, I thought he was trying to kill himself… and then married one of those hookers in an attempt to see if Cuddy would stop him."

"You say he married a hooker? From what we understand, his wife was a pastry chef at the hotel."

Wilson couldn't help himself. He gasped. _What an idiot he was! Why had he automatically assumed that Domenika was a hooker? God, sometimes he was no better than Cuddy!_ "I'm sorry… I must have been under a mistaken impression." He really needed to realign his thinking; it was obvious he'd made a lot of assumptions over the years without bothering to corroborate the facts.

"Did you contact Dr. Nolan about his relapse or self-destructive behavior?"

"No. I probably should have, but I didn't."

"Was there any other sort of intervention? Anything offered through the workplace to help him with his emotional turmoil and relapse?"

"No. Not really. I did try to talk to him about his behavior, but he wouldn't listen."

"You encouraged him to get help?"

"I-I… yes. Sort of. I tried to get him to move back in with me, tried to get him to see a counselor."

"How did he respond?"

"Not well. He said he was talking to one of his hookers… I remember he called that _baby steps_. When I tried to get him to talk about things, he got really agitated. He yelled at me to leave him alone. Then, over the next few weeks, he seemed to increasingly resent my advice. Sometime later, he actually lost his temper and smashed the glass on a picture in my office with his cane."

"Did it occur to you when he got upset that perhaps your approach might not have been the best way to deal with the situation? Or that his violent reaction might be indicative of more perilous emotional or physical difficulties?"

"At the time, no. I thought I was saying what he needed to hear and he was just resisting. I kept telling him he needed to deal with his feelings… that he would feel better if he did. I guess, in retrospect, though, I was pretty condescending toward him. And perhaps pushing him to deal with his feelings might have precipitated what happened afterward. I think maybe I could have handled it better. Much better."

"What led up to the incident with Dr. Cuddy's house?"

"I thought he was finally getting over her. One night, he and I were planning to go out, but he said he'd found her hairbrush at his place and wanted to return it. He seemed calm about it… he really did. But then, when we got there, something switched. He told me to get out of the car, and then he drove away like a bat out of hell down the street, turned around suddenly and drove up her driveway at full speed, right into her dining room."

"What happened then?"

"He looked stunned. I remember he thanked me, and said he _did _feel better. After that, he just disappeared for a long time. The next thing I knew he was in prison. I was so angry with him for what he had done - when he drove into her house, I'd jumped out of the way and broken my wrist - I made no attempt to see him. We didn't reconcile until after he was paroled and back at work."

"But no one was hurt at Dr. Cuddy's house?"

"No. Apparently, they had all left the dining room just before he crashed into it. I guess maybe he knew that, but I'm not sure."

"Did anyone visit him in prison?"

"I don't know. I was still pretty angry."

"Did you know that he had turned himself in? That he had refused legal counsel and had willingly accepted a more severe sentence than his actions warranted?"

_He had?_ "No, I wasn't aware of that."

"Let's move forward and talk about what happened when you found out you had cancer."

"It wasn't very rational of me, but I decided I wanted to try a radical and dangerous treatment, and Greg helped me with it at his apartment."

"So although he had been unable to be there for Dr. Cuddy during her cancer scare, he was there for you."

_Wow. He was, wasn't he? _"Yes, he was, although he didn't want to do it - he felt my chances were extremely good without it… and it turns out he was right - as he so often was - so he argued against the treatment. But when I insisted, he agreed. I was amazed. He actually gave up some of his Vicodin so I could get through it more easily. For the first time, I think I understood his pain and why he needed relief from it."

"And then, afterward?"

"You know the rest." Wilson dropped his head. "I've been such an idiot. For years, I treated him so badly, and yet he always hung in there with me. He was always a friend when I really… and I mean _really_… needed it. And I just couldn't see it. I wish I had appreciated him more when I had the chance."

Wilson felt tears pricking behind his eyes. His nemesis looked at him with something that appeared to sympathy. This time when she spoke up, her voice was soft. "I'm so sorry, Dr. Wilson. Sometimes it's awfully hard to see ourselves objectively, isn't it? Or to see our friends that way."

Wilson nodded mutely, a lump caught in his throat. He chest felt tight.

She went on. "Why do you think you and Dr. House were friends, Dr. Wilson?"

It took Wilson a moment to pull himself together enough to speak. The panel waited patiently for him. "Despite his obvious flaws, he was always interesting, always entertaining, always unexpected. And I think Greg allowed me to be myself, warts and all. He always accepted me… even though I'm pretty sure that I was at least as bad as Lisa was about not really accepting him. I have no idea why he wanted to be friends with me, but in retrospect, I'm awfully glad he did."

The woman nodded sympathetically. "Anything more you'd care to add?"

Wilson nodded again. "I genuinely think he was a tormented man. I believe he thought the only value he had was his medical mind. He always claimed that people don't change, but I'd have to say, having watching him over many years, that he did change. In time, he became more closed off, more angry… more crazy, maybe… less focused on the medicine. And yet I think he tried so hard to change in positive ways, but I never really saw it while it was happening. I was too caught up in my preconceptions of him. Maybe…" His voice caught. He drew a long, shaky breath. "Maybe… if I had encouraged him instead of lecturing him, we might not be here now."

"Anything else?"

"Just one more thing. I guess I spent years thinking House was a selfish bastard. I… I think… no, I _know_… I really underestimated him. A lot. I guess the truth of the matter is that, when it really counted, he was a far better friend to me than I was to him."

"Thank you, Dr. Wilson," said the woman he had perceived as his nemesis, "for your help in this matter, and for your honesty. We wish you well, both with your health and with your conscience."

The panel chair added, "Let's take a lunch break and see the next witness at 1 p.m."


	31. Day 8, 1 pm Rachel Cuddy

**Day Eight, 1 p.m.**

The child psychologist, a plump, red-haired woman, escorted the next witness into the inquiry room, lifting her up onto a booster seat stop the hard wooden chair. She then seated herself directly across the small table from the witness, and would be the one to ask all of the questions in this session.

"What is your name, my dear?"

"Hi. I'm Rachel."

The little girl with the long, dark hair fidgeted a bit, perched uncomfortably on the booster seat. She held in her arms a floppy-eared stuffed rabbit.

"Well, Rachel, do you understand the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie?"

"Uh-huh. My mommy told me I should always tell the truth."

"That's very good, Rachel."

"Sometimes, though, you have to keep a secret."

"That's true, Rachel. Did your mommy tell you that, too?"

"No. Hows did."

"You remember Dr. House?"

"That bloody scalawag?" The image of a very tall, kind of grumpy man with a cane popped into her mind. She smiled and then giggled. But then, she grew somber as she remembered how mad her mommy got when she'd ask if Hows could come play with her again. Rachel bit her lower lip hard, to keep from crying.

The woman's voice was soft and gentle. "That's a very good description of him. Why did you call him a bloody scalawag, honey?"

The nice woman distracted her from how sad she felt. "It's a secret," she said. "Hows said don't tell Mommy."

"Well, your mommy isn't here. Do you think it would be okay to tell us?"

Rachel pursed her lips and frowned as she thought it through. Finally, she nodded. "Hows showed me the pirate cartoon, and he said I could call him a bloody scalawag."

"What did he call you?"

"Ummmm… he said 'me hearty'."

"You like the pirate cartoon?"

"Yes, but Mommy doesn't." Again she smiled, thinking about how silly it was when the lady walked the plank and floated because her boobies floated in the water.

"Ah. What can you tell us about Dr. House? Remember, you have to tell the truth."

"Mommy said."

"Yes, she did. So we know you'll tell us the truth. Now, about Dr. House."

"He hurt his leg."

"Do you know how that happened?"

"No. Mommy and I went to see him, and she made me stay in the living room. I got sleepy. I got up on his sofa."

The woman looked confused, turning to glance quickly at the panel behind her. What Rachel didn't realize was that the child psychologist, for a moment, thought Rachel was talking about House's original leg injury, not the self-surgery to excise the tumors. Then she figured it out. "Did you fall asleep there?"

"Uh-huh."

"When you woke up, were you still at Dr. House's apartment?"

"No. I was in the car."

"Do you remember anything else?"

Frowning again, she tried to remember. She'd been so sleepy, but she remembered waking up in the car and seeing Mommy driving, then hearing something from the back seat and twisting to look. "His leg was all red - bloody - like a scalawag is, I guess - and Mommy took him to the hospital. He talked like a pirate." Rachel had been pretty scared when she saw all that blood, but then House had made her laugh, and she figured it would be okay.

"Did they make him better?"

"I don't know. I wrote him a letter. I said I wanted him to be my friend again. I wanted him to come play with me some more."

"And did he come play with you again?"

"N-No. I never seen… saw… him after that, so I got sad." As is the way with small children, Rachel's emotions bounced quickly from one feeling to another. In the course of a few minutes, she'd gone from nervous to happy to sad to happy and back to sad again.

"So you liked Dr. House?"

And now happy. She gave a big grin. "Uh-huh. He played Feed the Monkey with me, and gave me treats. He made mac-n-cheese for me. He liked to play games."

"His leg hurt before, though, didn't it?"

She nodded her head robustly until her dark, straight bangs bounced up and down. "He had a cane. I drew pictures of him like a pirate, but Mommy took them away."

"So his leg hurt him?"

"Sometimes."

"But your Mommy and Dr. House stopped seeing each other, didn't they, Rachel?"

"Uh-huh. I miss him. But Mommy said he got sick and couldn't come visit anymore." She didn't want to tell these strangers… and she never ever told Mommy… but ever since Mommy had said that about Hows, she'd been afraid that if she got sick, Mommy wouldn't want her anymore either.

"Do you know what happened to the home you used to live in?"

"Grandma Arlene was babysitting me, and then Mommy said the house was broken, so we moved."

"It's been a long time since you saw Dr. House, hasn't it?"

All of a sudden, the sadness overwhelmed her. The little girl's lower lip slid into a pout and began to quiver as her eyes started filling up. "I was three. Now I'm five and three quarters. I want to see Hows, but Mommy won't even let me say his name. I guess she got pretty mad at him when he got sick." She didn't mean to say the next sentence, but it just slipped out. "Is she gonna get mad at me if I get sick?"

She started to cry. The plump red-haired woman jumped up abruptly and ran around the small table, enfolding the little girl in her arms. The stuffed rabbit tumbled to the floor, but the woman picked it up and returned it to the little girl, who clutched it tightly, wrapping both of her arms around it and holding it to her heart as she sobbed.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," she said. "It must be hard not to see your friend. We didn't mean to make you cry. I'm sure your mommy won't get mad at you if you get sick."

"R-r-really?"

"Really."

Rachel sniffled, and the woman pulled a tissue from her pocket so Rachel could blow her nose. Slowly, the little girl pulled herself together. She looked up at the woman, her brown eyes red with crying. "Do you think maybe Mommy will change her mind? I really miss Hows."

The woman sent an enquiring glance at her colleagues, some of whom shrugged and slowly shook their heads. "I couldn't say, dear. Are you feeling a little better now?"

Rachel nodded.

"I think that's all we want to know."

The woman helped Rachel out of the booster seat, and walked the sad little girl to the door. Rachel, occasionally wiping her nose on her sleeve, dragged her floppy-eared rabbit behind her.

"Fifteen-minute break."


	32. Day 8, 3 pm Dr Lisa Cuddy

**Day Eight, 3 p.m.**

Lisa Cuddy was a hostile witness. A very hostile witness. She entered the room defiantly, her heels sharply clacking noisily against the wood floor. With her jaw set in irritation and her eyes narrowed almost to slits, she settled herself behind the small table, her hands clasped tightly in front of her, her entire body angular and fraught with tension.

"State your name."

"Dr. Lisa Cuddy." In her own ears, her voice sounded brittle and hard, her words clipped.

"What is your current job title, Dr. Cuddy?"

"I am the chief administrator at Philadelphia Mercy Hospital, former dean of medicine and chief administrator at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital."

"Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions, Dr. Cuddy."

Cuddy sat stiffly in the hard wooden chair facing the panel. "I don't really see the necessity for this hearing, or for me to be present. I have professional obligations to attend to. And I really resent your bringing my daughter into this."

"I understand you are an unwilling witness here, but we'll get through this as quickly as we can."

"I'd appreciate it," she said, pressing her lips together into a thin line.

"Tell us when you first met Gregory House."

"We met at the University of Michigan." Cuddy was determined to keep her statements as brief and to the point as she could, hoping she could get out of here quickly. For years, she'd gotten mad at House, but then her attraction to him would win out, and she'd forgive him anything. But ever since he drove that car into her dining room, she'd been unable to get past her fury, unable to remember what had attracted her to him in the first place.

"What was your relationship with him at that time?"

"He was a few years ahead of me. We had a one-night stand. Then he left school abruptly, and I didn't see him again until I was at Princeton-Plainsboro."

"When did you next meet him?"

"At the time of his leg injury. I became his primary physician." Almost unwillingly, Cuddy remembered that moment, that horrible moment when she realized the man screaming in sheer agony before her was the same man she'd followed around starry-eyed at U-M, the one she audited that endocrinology course for. When she recognized him, she had nearly become physically ill.

"Tell us about that."

"He had been admitted with severe leg pain, which turned out to be a blood clot that eventually led to muscle cell death." _It couldn't be the same man, could it?_ she remembered thinking. That athletic, graceful guy, who strode arrogantly around the campus, a flock of panting undergraduate females in his wake, Lisa Cuddy one of the crowd.

"Who diagnosed the cause of his pain? Was that you?"

"No. After he had an MRI, he and the doctor on staff had both diagnosed it. I wasn't brought in until his injury had been left untreated for three or four days."

"And what was your recommended treatment?"

"I felt that amputation of his right leg was the only reasonable course of action."

"Did Dr. House agree with your assessment?"

"No, he did not. He insisted on a bypass, which increased his pain even further, causing a cardiac arrest, and then chose to be put into a medically induced coma, which he felt might allow him to sleep through the worst of the pain. He believed the coma presented the most positive possible outcome - that he might come out the other side in the best shape that way."

"But that's not what you did, is it, Dr. Cuddy? What did you do instead?"

"I ordered a debridement procedure to eliminate the dead tissue."

"Was that conducted at Dr. House's request?"

"No. I suggested the procedure to Dr. House's medical proxy, Stacy Lockhart. She approved the debridement."

"What was Dr. House's reaction to this suggestion?"

"He was not present during the conversation with Ms. Lockhart."

"So he was not given the opportunity to make an informed decision about his own treatment?"

"No, he was not." Cuddy had always feared that moment in her medical career would come back to haunt her, and now it seemed as if it had.

"When in the process was the debridement performed?"

"After he was in the medically induced coma."

"What was his reaction when he awoke?"

"He was angry, and felt betrayed by Ms. Lockhart. They broke up a few months later, as I understand it."

Cuddy remembered telling Stacy that the debridement held the possible risk of reperfusion injury… and that's exactly what had happened, leaving Gregory House in permanent, excruciating pain. Although she hadn't thought about it in years, she had wondered - dreamed, even - at the time whether she had made the right call, whether she should have just trusted the judgment of the patient, who also happened to be the greatest medical mind she'd ever known. Was it the original blood clot, untreated for days, that left him in such pain, or was it her own medical actions, done behind his back, that had turned that charismatic, brilliant, funny man into the cantankerous malcontent he had since become?

"You say he felt betrayed by Ms. Lockhart. Did he seem to feel betrayed by you as well? You had ordered the procedure, after all, and the two of you had a previous history."

"No. He never held it against me." _He hadn't, had he?_ Despite herself, Cuddy had to acknowledge that he certainly had every reason to feel as betrayed by her as he had by Stacy… and yet, he had never said a word against her about it.

"Once you became his physician, did it concern you, ethically, that you were treating someone you had once been involved with… or that you did not include Dr. House in the discussions of this possible treatment?"

"Not particularly. I felt it was the best chance to save his life." _Boy, that sounded conceited_, she thought_. And I have always been the one who insisted on informed consent._

"You are an endocrinologist, are you not? This was not your area of expertise."

"Correct."

Fortunately, the panel left it at that. "Let's move ahead a few years. Under what circumstances did you hire Dr. House?"

"That happened about a year after his surgery. I had heard that Dr. House was no longer working, that he was still suffering a great deal of pain."

"Heard from whom?"

"His friend, Dr. James Wilson." Wilson, who was on the fast track to becoming PPTH's youngest-ever head of the Oncology Department, had lunch with Cuddy about once a week, depending on their respective schedules. When they got together, he would give her an update on House's progress (if any), never really aware she had a personal investment in House - not just because he had been her patient, but also because of their long-ago tryst at U-M. Every week, she found herself barely able to eat, listening to Wilson talk about House's pain, his problems with mobility, his depression, his anger, and every week she found herself wondering if she had done this to the man, if it was her own actions that had changed him so much.

"And this pain - was it in direct correlation to the procedure you had ordered for Dr. House when he was under your care?"

"Possibly." Who was she kidding? Of course, it was in direct correlation… or at least part of it was. She'd never know for sure, of course, how much of his pain was from the original injury, ultimately untreated for four days, and how much of the responsibility came back to her and her choices.

"Possibly?" repeated the chairman. "From what we can see on the scans, given how much muscle and nerve were removed in the debridement, leaving nerve endings exposed, it seems more than possible. Please tell us how you came to create the first-ever department of diagnostics, and how you came to hire Dr. House as a tenured faculty member to head it up."

Back onto safe ground. "I knew about Dr. House's reputation - both good and bad - and went to our board of directors about setting up the department." Cuddy was relieved to move away from the topic of her ethical lapse in judgment over House's surgery. Maybe things would go smoother from here on out.

"What prompted your decision to take this chance on Dr. House, whom I understand, did not have the best employment record prior to his injury?"

"It was part of my mission to find ways to improve the hospital's standing in the medical community, and I felt that creating this department was an excellent opportunity in that direction." Although true, that certainly wasn't the whole story. She knew that how she (and the other doctors) had treated House medically had put the hospital in danger of a major medical malpractice lawsuit, and creating the department for him was her way of taking preemptive action to avoid that very real possibility.

"Were there any additional motivating factors, Dr. Cuddy? Please keep in mind that we have already spoken with others about how Dr. House came to be hired."

Cuddy gritted her teeth. "I… I must confess that I was concerned about the possibility of a malpractice lawsuit, based on Dr. House's treatment the previous year." _Uh-oh_, she thought, as she realized this panel was sharp enough to figure out her motivations in bringing House on board.

"A malpractice lawsuit against the hospital, or against you personally?"

Cuddy did _not_ want to answer this question, but she felt she had no choice. "Both," she said, reluctantly, through her teeth.

"Had he suggested he might be considering a malpractice lawsuit?"

"Not to me, no. If he was considering a suit, I wasn't aware of it." That was true enough. Of course, she hadn't talked to him directly since the debridement surgery, and she'd managed to get Wilson to change the subject every time it seemed to be headed that way in their weekly lunches. Despite the fact that she really wanted to know if House was planning to sue, she also didn't want to have to admit to foreknowledge of it.

"But you were concerned that it might be a possibility?"

"Yes, I suppose I was." From the moment she had gone against his express wishes, she'd known the legal and ethical consequences of her actions. She'd spent that first year just waiting for the boom to fall. Every mail delivery, she was sure, would bring a white envelope with the name of some malpractice law firm in the upper left-hand corner. But, somehow, she'd been lucky; it had never happened. Then she got her brilliant idea to hire House - essentially buying him off with a job, a job so tantalizing he couldn't possibly turn it down - and thereby make sure that likelihood of a lawsuit wouldn't keep dangling over her like the pendulum in the Poe story.

"What was the effect on the hospital's reputation as a result of having Dr. House on staff?"

At this point in her life, with the image of her demolished dining room still fresh in her mind, Cuddy hated having to admit that anything positive had come from her decision to hire House, but she couldn't avoid the reality of the situation, much as she might have wanted to. "The hospital's reputation improved," she said, succinctly.

"How much did it improve?"

_Dammit_. "A lot. It took us from being a small, regional hospital to a world-class institution."

"So, I assume that confirmed for you that you had made the right decision in hiring Dr. House."

"Yes, it did." Although, right this minute, she wish she'd never laid eyes on the man.

"And did this increased reputation include increased donations?"

"Yes."

"By how much?"

"Probably ten-fold in the first two years." Somehow, fundraising, which had always been like pulling teeth, had abruptly become simple. Just mention House's name, pull out a few press announcements, and the money poured in.

"And after the first two years?"

"More."

"How much money in donations are we talking about here, Dr. Cuddy?"

"I don't have the exact figures handy, but I would say we received in the neighborhood of an additional $100 million per year at the beginning. More later on."

"We understand that Dr. House was uninterested in publicity for his successes, but we have here a number of PPTH press release giving him credit for saving the lives of some pretty well-known people." The panel chair held out a hefty stack of papers. "Who arranged for those releases to be written and distributed?"

"I did." She'd had no problem allowing the hospital to get credit for House's achievements, even though the man had obstinately refused to give press conferences or do interviews.

"So would you say the hospital's reputation benefitted from having him on board?"

"Yes, I suppose I would." No question about it, but she was damned if she'd acknowledge that.

"And your personal reputation, by extension, would also have benefitted. Would that be true?"

"Yes." It certainly was true, which now galled her no end. Before she hired House, she'd be left on hold or have to leave a message if she called the AMA or another hospital. After hiring House, whenever she placed a call, the person on the other end picked up immediately upon hearing her name. The best publications regularly solicited articles from her, and she was entreated to be the keynote speaker at medical administration conferences. Yes, indeed, her reputation had benefitted.

"And would you say that his team members also benefitted from working for Dr. House… that their standing in the international medical community was raised?"

"Yes. They often wrote up Dr. House's cases for highly regarded medical journals."

"Thank you. Would you say that Dr. House was paid commensurate with his value to the hospital?"

The question took Cuddy by surprise. "I felt he was paid appropriately." She saw a couple of the panel members sift through the papers in front of them, and began to feel a bit uneasy about where this line of questioning might be going. She felt her heart sink. Perhaps she hadn't been as clever as she'd thought when she had publicly and repeatedly mentioned getting him for a song.

"According to our records, Dr. House was paid considerably less than the statewide standard for a specialist or a department head. In addition, his salary was far below that of your other department heads. Would you care to explain this discrepancy?"

_How the hell am I going to handle this? _she wondered, her anxiety level ratcheting up a notch. Dealing with things head on was always her first option, so head on it would be. "He had a troublesome job history," she began, sounding more confident than she felt, "and he was known to be difficult to work with, so it seemed reasonable that he should be compensated accordingly."

The reality, if she was brutally honest with herself, was that she'd played him. After talking to Wilson every week, she'd realized House was particularly vulnerable at the point where she'd come up with her brilliant idea to create the department for him. During their salary negotiations, in order to manipulate House into settling for a much lower salary than he was worth, she had continually brought up his erratic job history and the fact that he hadn't worked for nearly a year, undermining his already damaged confidence. At the time, she hadn't felt too bad about it - it was simply business, after all, and it had saved the hospital a few million over the years - and yet, it wasn't particularly nice of her to take advantage of House that way. Oh, well. She wasn't paid to be nice. She was paid to make the best possible deal for the hospital. And she certainly had done that.

"And yet," said the chairman, "he was bringing into your hospital $100 million or more a year, not to mention a lot of extremely positive publicity."

"He was willing to accept the salary I offered. As a businesswoman, why would I offer to pay more under those circumstances?" Yes, she had taken advantage of him, but he'd accepted it. So who was the smart one?

"Once Dr. House was on staff, what accommodations did you make for his disability?"

"I didn't feel he needed any." _Oh, crap_, she thought, caught off guard by the change in topic. _Did I say that?_

"I beg your pardon, Dr. Cuddy, but surely you arranged for him to have a handicapped parking space."

"Well, yes, but that was obvious. He was still having trouble getting around, so it seemed only right." She refrained from mentioning that House had needed to fight with her just to get that parking space, or that she'd played games with him later on, giving his space away to another disabled employee and thereby forcing him to hobble around an icy parking lot just to get in the building. It was only because she'd had so much trouble picturing as disabled the formerly athletic House from med school that she'd slipped up on the original handicapped parking space. The second time, she remembered, she'd just seen it as one of their ongoing tit-for-tat games.

"Any other accommodations? Did he have in-house medical treatment or pain management care? Days off when his pain was unmanageable? Rest breaks? Ergonomic furniture? Anything?"

"I was not aware of other accommodations." It was only a few months after she'd been promoted to run the hospital that she'd convinced the board to allow her to make the offer to House. While getting adjusted to her new position, she'd had a lot on her plate… and she was sure she could come up with any number of other perfectly reasonable excuses for this particular lapse. After all, she hadn't even been up to date yet on the hospital's rules and regulations when House came on board.

The woman at the far end of the table interrupted immediately. "Not aware of any? Really, Dr. Cuddy? Whose responsibility should it have been to support and protect the man whose reputation increased the standing of your hospital such that it became, almost overnight, a world-class institution, and brought in the majority of donations to the hospital? Yours... or his own? The doctor or the patient? The supervisor or the employee?"

Defensive in the face of the woman's accusations, Cuddy didn't answer, just tightened her jaw even further. And besides, what could she say? She just hadn't been able to get used to thinking of Gregory House as an invalid. That was her only real excuse. And maybe this kind of lapse was exactly why House always claimed it was dangerous to get too close to a patient, to let your emotions rule when it really ought to be your head that was in charge.

Fortunately for her, the panel chair asked the next question: "Explain your management technique in dealing with Dr. House, and how it might have differed from the way you managed other department heads."

Cuddy felt on safer ground with this question. "Dr. House needed constant supervision. He was a loose cannon, and I had to stay on top of things, just to get him to do his job and not go off half-cocked with one of his insane treatment ideas. My other department heads were more responsible."

"What made you think this kind of supervision was necessary?"

Images of House sleeping in the clinic or watching TV or playing games flew in rapid succession through her mind. "I would often find him asleep in his office or an exam room. He was constantly playing on his computer, or fooling around with toys. He avoided work like the plague, so I felt he needed closer watching."

"Interesting. Is it possible that he was resting because of pain in his leg, or because he had terrible insomnia caused by that pain? Or is it possible that what you perceived as 'playing' was actually part of the creative process?"

"No," she said, sure of herself. "The man was simply lazy." _Was he?_ Her mind again flashed back to the man she'd known in Michigan. Yes, he liked to play games back then, but he was always working, always thinking. Would she have described that man as lazy? If she was being honest with herself, Cuddy would have to say no, she wouldn't have described that man as lazy. So what had changed? Had it been the whole concept of professional work that bothered him, or maybe his reaction to authority figures (which now included her), or was it a result of the pain, the insomnia… or just part and parcel of the creative process… the kinds of things the chairman of the panel had just mentioned… and about which she'd never given any particular thought.

"Okay…" She saw panel members making notations on their yellow pads. "Describe his duties."

"He was supposed to take cases on a regular basis - usually only one at a time, because of the nature of his work, although I was happy when he took more than one. He was also expected to publish, as is usually the case with someone in an academic institution like Princeton… he needed to teach the occasional course or guest lecture, and he was also required to work in the free clinic several hours per week. "

The next question took her by surprise. "And why, may I ask, was someone of Dr. House's caliber working in your clinic?"

"All the doctors on staff were responsible for clinic hours." _Where was this going? _She hadn't expected House to do anything that wasn't also required by all her other doctors.

"Even if their talents suggested that they could be better used elsewhere?"

"It was part of their contract. Besides, House got behind on his clinic hours… by several years, in fact." Haranguing House into doing his clinic hours had been at the top of her to-do list for years.

"What did working in the clinic entail?"

"He was expected to put in a minimum of five hours per week. He saw patients and recommended treatment, writing prescriptions, etc."

"Did this involve a lot of walking or standing?"

"Sometimes." Oh._ Now_ she knew where this was going, and she felt that sinking feeling return to her midsection.

"You're saying you honestly believe that it was an appropriate use of Dr. House's time and skills to have him spend time on his feet dealing with patients who could just as easily have been treated by a first-year resident?"

"Well, when you put it that way…"

"I do. And yet, according to the records, Dr. House was unable to take on more than a small percentage of the diagnostic cases that were referred to him. As a result, many of those patients who were never seen by him ultimately died. Did it never occur to you that, with his pain issues and his unique medical gift, perhaps he should be absolved of his clinic debt and encouraged to take more diagnostic cases instead?"

Cuddy's breath caught. Had her decision to make House work in the clinic cost lives? Her mind circled around the idea, but she didn't want to think about the implications of what they were saying. In fact, she decided, she simply _wouldn't_ think about it. _Don't back down. You got where you are by being strong. Don't admit failure; bully your way through if you have to. _"No. It did not," she said. "It was part of his contract, and it was my job to enforce that contract."

"So you never considered altering his contract in any way because of his disability?"

"Never." At least that part was true. She had dogmatically stuck to the terms of House's original contract the entire time she was at PPTH. He annoyed her so much with their constant wrangling about clinic duty that she'd figured he deserved any additional physical pain it caused him… after all, he was causing her mental pain by being such an ass about it.

"Uh-huh. Okay. Were there ever occasions when you used clinic duty as a disciplinary tool for Dr. House?"

"I might have," she answered, wondering where that question was coming from, but growing increasingly leery about the focus of the panel's questions and how they were forcing her to deal with things she'd either never considered or had shied away from.

The chairman of the panel flipped through the papers in front of him. "Could you tell us about the time Dr. House was asked to consult for the CIA?"

Suddenly, Cuddy's emotions flared up, and she found herself annoyed. "He… he never… that _never_ happened. It was just a bullshit story he made up so he could skip out of doing his work."

"Not according to this letter from Dr. Samira Terzi, formerly of the CIA and currently with the FBI," said the man in front of her, holding up a letter. Even from a distance, Cuddy recognized government letterhead. _Oh, no,_ she thought. _This is really not good._

The chairman continued. "She says she requested Dr. House's services to aid a seriously ill CIA agent, and sent a government helicopter to pick him up."

Cuddy was flabbergasted, to say the least. "I… I don't know what to say. I thought he was scamming me."

"Clearly he wasn't. Did Dr. House tell you he'd been doing work for the CIA?"

"Well, yes… but I didn't believe him." He was always yanking her chain, always lying, always being such an incredible jerk. Why should she have believed him?

"Why didn't you believe him?"

"It was such an outrageous story, I knew it couldn't be true."

"And yet it was true," said the chairman. "Did you, or did you not, assign him additional clinic hours at that time?"

"I did… but again, I was sure he hadn't actually been working for the CIA. Why would I think that was true?"

"Did you attempt to confirm his story?" Yet again, Cuddy realized she'd overlooked the obvious. She'd been so damned sure he was making it up - it was such an unlikely tale - that it had never even dawned on her to check his story.

"No, I did not." Based on her pervious experience with him, she had assumed it was a dodge. How was she supposed to know the CIA had actually sent a helicopter for him?

_But had it really been all that unlikely?_ she wondered. Certainly, with House's international reputation, it was not outside the bounds of reason that the CIA might have sent for him on a troublesome medical issue. Thinking back on it, she did remember hearing some of her staff complain about loud noises on the roof… could that have been a helicopter? And, of course, there were House's prospective fellows, who had been overheard in the cafeteria commenting about a strange man who had appeared in their midst that day, and claiming that, shortly thereafter, House had disappeared for several hours.

"Was it common for you to 'punish' Dr. House by assigning him additional clinic hours?"

"I guess I wouldn't say it was common, necessarily, but it did happen on occasion." Cuddy felt distinctly uncomfortable with the realization that she had been so positive the CIA story couldn't be true that she hadn't even done due diligence to confirm his story. The accusation that she punished House with clinic duty - while true - didn't make her feel any more at ease, especially with what they'd pointed out about clinic duty aggravating his leg pain. Visions of ADA violation fines danced in her head.

_Damn him!_ At times, he was like the Boy Who Cried Wolf. He lied and misbehaved so often that she never even considered believing him most of the time. How many other times had he told her the truth and she hadn't believed him? And which came first - his lying or her disbelieving? Had he started lying to her because she hadn't believed him when he told the truth, or had he actually been lying all along, setting her up to distrust him. Or, worse yet, had he started lying because he hadn't wanted to admit that his disability made things more difficult for him, so he made up stories to keep that from being the focus. Chicken or egg? How many times had she given him extra clinic duty when, with a little bit of research - or consideration for his disability – she might have realized he didn't deserve it?

Cuddy was thankful when the chairman changed topics. "Dr. Foreman has told us that at one point, you made him Dr. House's second in command, but this promotion was not reflected in the documents we received. Was he correct?"

"Yes."

"Why was this not made official?"

It was at this point Cuddy resigned herself to answering the panel's questions fully. Obviously, they weren't going to shy away from difficult subjects, and it was not in her self-interest to remain belligerent throughout the proceedings. "I didn't see the need to… Dr. Foreman and I had a handshake agreement. He got a substantial raise, and I got someone to help control Dr. House's behavior."

"Was Dr. Foreman, in fact, able to control Dr. House's behavior?"

"Actually, it didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. House generally ignored Dr. Foreman - unless Eric came to me with a specific problem, in which case I would intervene." As the topic turned away from House and toward her interactions with Foreman, Cuddy felt herself begin to unwind just a little bit.

"So Dr. Foreman became a high-priced tattletale?"

"I guess you could see it that way. It was still worth it to me to have someone on House's team keeping me abreast of what was happening."

"Did you take this unusual step because you didn't trust Dr. House on some level?"

_Had she trusted House? In fact, no, she hadn't trusted him, which brought her thoughts dangerously close once again to the whole topic of clinic duty and House's lying. _"My past experience with him was that he sometimes took extreme measures during the diagnostic process and wouldn't inform me first. With Dr. Foreman reporting to me regularly, I had a heads up when House was about to do an end run around me."

The woman at the end of the table - the same woman who had asked Wilson such troubling questions - again picked up the questioning. "When Dr. House used such radical measure, what was the result? Did those approaches lead to the correct diagnosis, even if they seemed bizarre at the time?"

"Most of the time, House eventually came up with the right answer," she admitted, "and often those bizarre approaches did lead… eventually… to a diagnosis and treatment. However, there were also times when his approach endangered the patient along the way, or when an alternative might be less invasive. That was when I would intervene."

"Given your own medical background, which was endocrinology, did you actually have the expertise to determine when Dr. House's methods were the correct ones or not?"

Cuddy did _not_ like this question - it reminded her far too much of the way House used to belittle her relative lack of hands-on medical experience. Still, she'd made up her mind to go through with this, so on she went. "Not always. But his team was there as a check-and-balance system for him, and generally, if he suggested something that seemed completely outrageous to me, or something that was financially prohibitive, I could get feedback from his team before he went too far with it. Of course, once Dr. Foreman was promoted, that became easier."

"As for these outrageous suggestions, isn't it true that they contributed to his diagnostic process, part of what made him one of the greatest medical minds of our time?"

"I guess maybe they did. He still needed supervision, however."

The panel chair resumed questioning. "Good point. You mentioned finances, Dr. Cuddy. It sounds to me as if some of these steps along the way to finding a diagnosis could be pretty expensive. Is that true?"

This was safe ground, Cuddy thought. "House paid no attention to the financial concerns of the hospital or the insurance reimbursement to us. If he decided he wanted to do something, he was going to try it, and God help us all if we got in his way. It was my job to stay on top of those things… and try not to compromise patient care at the same time."

"How did these expensive tests balance out with the donations his department brought into the hospital?"

"In our annual budgeting process, we always allotted Diagnostics enough money to cover such things, and the donations far outweighed those costs. Of course, the cost per patient was often much higher than for any other department, except perhaps oncology. But when he saved the life of the man who went on to become President of the United States, or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, then money had very little relative value."

"Well put, Dr. Cuddy. Thank you for explaining things so clearly. Why don't we adjourn for today, and reconvene tomorrow morning at nine?"

_That wasn't so bad,_ thought Cuddy, as she stared at her reflection in the ladies' room mirror before leaving the building. But she did find herself cringing as she thought about the debridement questions. She'd always been afraid of repercussions for the way she'd gone behind House's back on that, and that fear had been rekindled this afternoon.


	33. Day 9, 9 am Dr Lisa Cuddy 2

**Day Nine, 9 a.m. - Thursday**

The next morning, after taking a deep breath, Lisa Cuddy squared her shoulders and marched back into the inquiry room, settling herself onto the wooden chair.

"Tell us, from your perspective, Dr. Cuddy, what happened with Detective Tritter."

_Oh, dear Lord_, thought Cuddy, who really didn't care to rehash that travesty… and she absolutely didn't intend to tell these strangers how she had perjured herself to keep House out of jail. Maybe, she thought, it would have been better if she'd just kept her mouth shut and let the idiot serve time then.

She took another deep breath and answered the question. "Det. Tritter came to me with a complaint about House's behavior toward him in the clinic - not an unusual situation, by the way. I demanded that House apologize to him, but he refused. It escalated from there."

"We understand that Det. Tritter froze the assets of many of Dr. House's fellows, as well as the assets and prescribing privileges of Dr. Wilson. What legal action did you take, as hospital administrator, to rectify that situation?"

_What the hell was the point of _that _question?_ she wondered. "None. I was hoping that by working with House and putting pressure on him, the situation would resolve itself."

"You're talking about restricting, then eliminating his access to Vicodin, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"And meaning you thought he would then apologize in order to get his prescriptions renewed?"

"Yes."

"But from what we've been told about his character, that was never very likely."

"It still seemed like the right approach. I thought if we could make things more uncomfortable for House if he didn't apologize than if he did, he would rectify things."

"It didn't happen that way, did it?"

Yesterday, they'd questioned her judgment in ordering the debridement and about getting Foreman to snitch to her about House, and now they were questioning her judgment about how she'd handled the Tritter disaster. "Not exactly, no."

"While all this was going on, did you seek advice from the hospital's counsel about Dr. House's legal rights… or attempt to challenge the legality of Det. Tritter's actions, which, as we understand it, were not actually performed according to the law?"

"No, I did not."

In fact, Cuddy realized, it had never even dawned on her to get in-house legal advice. Why, she couldn't say, especially in light of the panel's assertions that Tritter was acting outside the law.

Every other time House had gotten himself in deep with a patient, she'd had the lawyers all over it. But in the Tritter case, when so much was at stake, House had even had to hire an outside attorney to plead his case. Of course, that was about his arrest, which took place outside hospital property. But if Tritter was actually on a less-than-legal vendetta that originated in the clinic, then it all really revolved around the hospital and pointed to negligence on her part. Wilson's prescribing privileges had been affected… and certainly Tritter's shutdown of Wilson and House's team's bank accounts affected the hospital. Then there was the whole business of Tritter pressuring her staff to turn on House. Her mind buzzed around the problem.

Maybe she _should_ have gotten the PPTH legal counsel in on it. Maybe, if what Tritter did really was illegal, things could have been resolved much sooner. She wouldn't have had to force House to detox at all, and she would never have had to perjure herself. Cuddy was not comfortable with these disturbing thoughts; she didn't like facing the possibility that she might have handled things better, and, as was often her way when confronted with something that went against deep-seated beliefs, she shut those ideas out, making herself focus only on the specific questions she was being asked. Unfortunately for her, the panel was not going to let her get away with ignoring the problem.

"This seems like a serious managerial oversight on your part," said the chairman, bluntly, echoing her self-examination. "Did you ever ask Dr. House why he was being so stubborn about Det. Tritter? Did it ever occur to you to wonder if there might be more to the story, that perhaps Det. Tritter had precipitated the problem himself?"

"No, it did not." _It should have, though, shouldn't it?_ came a niggling little voice tickling at the back of Cuddy's mind, the same little voice that had disconcerted her when she found out House's crazy story about the CIA had actually been true.

"From what you and others told us, you restricted and then withheld Dr. House's pain medication to try to force him into rehab, which you felt might appease Det. Tritter. Would that be accurate?"

"Yes, it would."

"And you had no compunction about withholding pain meds from a man suffering severe nerve and muscle pain?"

Cuddy didn't enjoy feeling like a bug under a microscope, so she went on the attack. "I felt it was the only way to resolve the situation," she stated firmly. "And besides, House used Vicodin to numb himself out from emotional pain as well as physical. It should be apparent from what happened to him later that the man had serious addiction issues."

"Did you really believe the best way to handle an already volatile situation was to force someone you believed to be an addict to go through unsupervised withdrawal?"

She set her jaw in irritation. "Yes. Under the circumstances, with Det. Tritter watching over our shoulders, yes, I did."

"Did Dr. House have any patients during this detoxing period?"

_In her mind's eye, Cuddy saw the dwarf mother and her daughter seeking a medical solution from House and his team. With a sharp stomach clench, she remembered standing at House's front door, seeing him in the throes of withdrawal, refusing to give him pills, but insisting that he help the patient, despite the fact that she was the one who had pulled him off the case. _

"_You'd rather kill this girl than give me my pills?" he'd asked, with that frightening ability he had for getting to the heart of the issue. _

"_I would rather lose one patient now than the dozens we will lose while you're in prison," she'd replied, in what she suddenly felt was an appalling application of medical arithmetic._

_What had House said? "Have fun explaining that to her itsy bitsy mother." _

_The next morning, Cameron brought up the subject again. "What if we sacrifice this girl and House still goes to jail?" she'd asked. _

_And how had Cuddy responded to that? "I'd feel bad," was all she'd said about it. _

_Had she really been so callous that she would intentionally allow the death of a patient just to resolve an increasingly uncomfortable situation? And, unlike her, and despite what he'd said to her, House had quietly prompted his team to find the right answer, apparently unwilling to sacrifice the patient just because he'd been going through hell and Cuddy had yanked him from the case. So who really was the more responsible person in the situation? Which of them had been more ethical? Cuddy no longer knew._

"Yes, he did, at first… although I removed him from the case." Fingers crossed, she hoped they'd take it no further.

"And this was not the only time you forced Dr. House into a cold-turkey detox, was it?"

"No, it wasn't." They just weren't going to let up. If they'd known House the way she had, they'd have known he was an addict. Why were they making her feel as if she was the one who had done something wrong?

"How was the situation ultimately resolved?"

"The case was dismissed and Dr. House went into rehab." _Which he scammed, _thought Cuddy with disgust. _Damned Vicodin._

As angry as she'd been with him at the time, it had never occurred to her to wonder why, if he had been scamming while he was in rehab, he had spent hours vomiting into the rehab toilet. But as the unwanted thought flitted through her mind now, she chose to ignore it.

"Back to the other detoxing incident. We have heard from Dr. Wilson his version of the events. Would you please tell us yours?"

Cuddy was glad for a change of subject, even as she recognized there might be new pitfalls ahead. "Dr. Wilson and I felt that House had become addicted to Vicodin, and thought that if he had to detox from it, he would recognize that he had a drug problem. He could never back down from a bet or a challenge, so I offered him time off from the clinic if he could go a week without Vicodin."

"Which he, in fact, did. Correct?"

"Yes. He even admitted at the end of the week that he was addicted, but told Dr. Wilson he had no intention of quitting. According to what James told me, House claimed the Vicodin didn't make his pain go away, but it enabled him to function… to pay his bills, cook his meals and do his job."

The chairman looked thoughtful. "Interesting. From what we've heard about other instances when he had to do without painkillers, it sounds as if that might quite literally have been true."

_Uh-oh_. She _really_ didn't like where this line of questioning was leading her. "You may be right," she conceded, less than happily. "Some of the worst problems we ever had with him were when he was detoxing." But then there was the whole hallucinations/delusion problem triggered by the Vicodin. Her head hurt as her brain tried to resolve conflicting ideas.

Certainly the worst problem she'd ever had with him personally was when he took that one damned pill just so he could sit by her side during her cancer scare. Cuddy didn't like the suggestion that maybe… just maybe… he was often better on the stuff than off. She'd wanted him to be with her, but totally unimpaired. But if the only way he could handle his fear of losing her was one measly Vicodin, and it enabled him to be there for her, why had she felt such a strong need to dump his ass for it? If she hadn't, there would have been no drug and alcohol bingeing, no hookers, no green card hooker wife, no cannonball into the pool off a 10-story balcony… and her house and career would still be intact.

As most people do, Cuddy saw everything through the prism of her own feelings and experiences, so in her reflections, she gave no thought to the impact of that one measly Vicodin on House's personal life - a long prison sentence, ruined reputation, financial disaster, faked death, parole violations, and so much more - nothing about what that one Vicodin and her subsequent breakup with him had cost the man she had once claimed she loved so much.

For some reason, she found herself wondering just how she actually defined the word _love_. The panel chair roused her from her reverie. "Dr. Wilson told us that, during both of these detox incidents, there was no medical supervision of Dr. House's initial withdrawal, and no attempt to provide alternate pain medication for him. Is that true?"

As her mind raced through memories of both detoxes, Cuddy struggled to come up with a reasonable explanation, one that would absolve her and Wilson from what was clearly becoming an accusation of medical insensitivity… at the very least. "House did complete his detox during the Tritter incident at our rehab facility at PPTH, under medical supervision," she said, hoping she'd be lucky and they wouldn't notice that she had completely skipped over the other detox, or House's miserable withdrawal before going into rehab. Which he'd scammed. Or had he?

She wasn't lucky. The woman down the table to her left immediately jumped on her evasive answer. "You've ignored the real question, Dr. Cuddy," she said. "We asked you if it was true there was no medical supervision of Dr. House's _initial_ withdrawal in the Tritter incident or any at all during the weeklong detox bet situation. Did you or did you not provide medical supervision for him? And did you or did you not provide him with alternative pain relief?"

Closing her eyes a moment and sighing, Cuddy knew she was cornered. "No. Neither Dr. Wilson nor I provided Dr. House with any alternative pain medication, and there was no direct medical supervision, other than the two of us making sure he wasn't using." That sinking feeling grew as she saw several of the panelists taking furious notes.

"Can you explain why you ignored medical protocol in both of these incidents, leaving Dr. House alone to go through such painful withdrawal that in once instance, he broke his own hand to activate the gating mechanism, and in the other, began cutting himself to release endorphins?"

Swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat, Cuddy suddenly didn't feel like her usual confident self. She - and Wilson - _were_ at fault here. No matter how good their intentions, or how sure they were that House was an addict, they (no, make that _she_) had gone about it in a particularly cruel way, a way that not only caused House considerable and needless pain, but also was totally ineffective at dealing with the issue. In neither situation had their efforts resulted in House giving up the drug for long.

All that happened in the first case was that he'd admitted he was an addict (but wasn't willing to quit using), and in the second he'd nearly gone to prison and had wound up desperately stealing bottle of oxycontin, thereby committing a felony, before he scammed his way through rehab. If he had actually scammed… she couldn't keep thinking about this.

A new idea occurred to her, and it was equally unsettling. Was it possible that, after several days of watching House suffer in extreme pain, Voldemort, as House had insisted on calling him, had taken pity on him and provided him with Vicodin, just to ease his own conscience about being part of House's torturous withdrawal?

Damn! It was a lot easier when she could stay angry and blame House for everything. She _really_ didn't like where her conscience was taking her, so once again, she locked the unwanted thoughts into a bank safe and left them there.

The panel chairman took over the questioning again and changed the subject, to her great relief, although the new topic only eased her discomfort slightly. "Dr. Cuddy, despite your current dislike of Dr. House, there must have been something about him that you liked at one time, or you would not have begun a romantic relationship with him. Could you give us some examples of moments when Dr. House showed you a positive side to his personality?"

Oh, God, she so didn't want to go here! It was bad enough to think she might have caused him unnecessary pain with those detoxes, but she certainly didn't want to remember anything good about him. Although willing to admit she'd made a mistake in getting involved with him, she wasn't yet ready to remember the reasons she'd gotten involved with him in the first place. And she really wasn't willing to admit that she might have contributed to the ultimate outcome of that mistake. He'd proved himself to be unstable and violent, and she was serious this time when she'd told him she was done. The last thing she wanted right now was to talk about him. Her resentment of this whole proceeding began to grow again as she grabbed at that anger toward House, clutching it close to her heart, desperately wanting to keep hating the man.

"I decline to answer that question."

"I'm sorry, Dr. Cuddy, but you don't have that choice. This is not optional. Answer the question."

Cuddy sighed dramatically, glaring at the panel chair. "I guess there were occasional moments when he did something positive. I can't think of any right now."

"Try. Try harder."

Cuddy thought back past her damaged home, past his fake marriage to that whore, past their breakup, past the relationship itself, and wracked her brain.

"Okay, I guess this would count. At one point, I was trying to become pregnant, and, because I was already getting older, I needed fertility shots. I asked House to give me the twice-daily injections. He did. And he never told anyone about it, not even Dr. Wilson."

"That sounds like something a friend would do for another friend. What else?"

"I suppose he sometimes gave me support or good advice. I remember trying to negotiate a contract with an insurance company, and I was facing problems on all sides. He privately encouraged me to keep after what I felt the hospital deserved. He was right. I got the deal. And I guess I needed his encouragement right that minute."

_He'd found her in the parking garage, sitting in her car, where she'd retreated to think. "They're not going to fire you," he'd said. "And you're not going to quit." "Why not?" she'd asked him. "Because you're an idiot," he'd replied. "This place needs you. And that matters to you." Then she'd asked him about Gail, who'd been stealing meds. "She's a sociopath," he'd told her. "You knew she was stealing meds?" she'd asked. "No," he'd said, "but have you seen the way she opens the mail?" "Why didn't you ever tell me?" she wanted to know, and he'd answered by saying, as only House could, "Figured it might come in handy one day."_

Almost against her will, Cuddy found herself smiling rather nostalgically. She'd almost forgotten - no, that wasn't right… she'd _purposely _forgotten - that side of House, that frighteningly perceptive side of him, the part of him that was almost always right, except when it came to making decisions for himself… and maybe even then… he had, after all, predicted that their relationship was doomed and had tried to talk her out of starting it up, predicting with frightening accuracy exactly what was going to happen. But how much of that was self-fulfilling prophecy, and how much was his innate understanding of their respective weaknesses and capacity for failure?

The panel's next question shook her out of her reverie. "What about your desk, Dr. Cuddy? Or your great-grandfather's book?"

_Wait… what? How did they know about those?_ "I… ummmm… yes, well, he did surprise me with the desk. It was, I guess, pretty thoughtful."

"You _guess_?"

"Yes, I… it was thoughtful." Flushing, she remembered how mortified she'd been to find him in his office with a hooker when she went to thank him. But had she ever actually gone back to express her thanks to him… or had she just ignored the whole thing after the awkward moment outside his office? She wanted to pretend she couldn't recall, but the reality was she was perfectly aware that she'd avoided the subject from that instant on, and had never attempted to thank him again. House must have gone to a lot of trouble to arrange such a gift - dealing with her mother and then getting the desk restored and secretly delivered. It really was a very thoughtful gesture, and for just a moment, Cuddy felt a little twinge of guilt over having been so ungracious about it that she'd never even mentioned it to House.

"How about the book?"

"Oh, that was just stupid. He'd found out Lucas and I were moving in together, and he somehow thought if he gave me a gift like that, I'd turn to him instead."

"Which, of course, you did. That same night."

"Y-yes. I guess I did." She'd never really thought about it that way. But by the time she'd broken up with Lucas and turned up in House's bathroom late that night, she'd forgotten all about the book. It had been a long day.

"How do you know what he thought at the time?" asked the panel chairman. "Did he tell you later on that he'd tried to use that gift to manipulate your feelings?"

"No. I just assumed…"

Wilson's nemesis spoke up from Cuddy's far left. "Dr. Cuddy, apparently you are unaware that Dr. House had gone to considerable effort and expense, over a period of many years, to track down that book for you. According to Dr. Wilson, he had been waiting for just the right moment to give it to you. So, is it possible the gift was his way of conceding defeat? That it was actually a considerate and gracious thing for him to do?"

Cuddy felt the breath get knocked out of her. Maybe he hadn't been tormenting her with that book. Maybe he'd meant it genuinely. And how had she responded? Not very positively, if she remembered correctly. What did his face look like at that moment? She really couldn't conjure it up; her memories were all mixed up with the crane crash and the turbulent emotions of that day. Was he hurt by her reaction? _I would be_, thought Cuddy, a tight, nasty knot suddenly forming in her stomach. _I'd feel hurt if my gift was not appreciated_. Maybe House wasn't the only one who had behaved badly at times.

"I… I didn't know that."

"Well, now you do. Other than his original injury and the couple of times you and Dr. Wilson forced Dr. House to detox against his will, how involved were you with his medical treatment?"

"Not much. Dr. Wilson was his prescribing physician." _Oh, wait. There was the methadone. And that time House had asked her for morphine injections._

"Not much isn't terribly specific, Dr. Cuddy," interjected the panel chairman, taking back the reins of the questioning. "Could you give us examples of other times you treated him medically?"

Cuddy closed her eyes. She was exhausted already, miserably hot and sticky, and not happy about this whole thing. "He approached me a couple of times, claiming his pain was out of control, and asked for morphine injections in his spine."

"He came to you, and not to Dr. Wilson or his pain doctor in Trenton."

"I… I didn't realize he was seeing a pain doctor."

"Yes, he had been… off and on for years. Answer the question, Dr. Cuddy."

"Yes. He came to me."

"And you gave him the morphine?"

"No, I did not."

"Really? Why not?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Cuddy saw the woman at the end of the table leafing through a stack of papers in front of her. Clearing her thoughts, Cuddy answered the question. "I felt he was exaggerating his pain, that he was actually responding to a psychological situation, not a physical one, so I injected him with saline instead."

"A placebo?"

"Yes."

"Was it effective?"

"Temporarily." At this, Cuddy became aware that all of the panel members were suddenly taking notes.

"I'm sure you know about the placebo effect," said the chairman, looking up from whatever he was scribbling, "so it's not surprising if Dr. House felt a temporary decrease in his pain levels."

"I am aware of that."

"Do you also realize that giving him a placebo would not mean his pain was psychological… just that he'd felt some relief because of the placebo effect, which can be temporarily effective on physical pain?"

"I…I…" Cuddy, for once, was speechless. While she grappled with what the chairman had said, he went right on to the next question.

"Why did you stop giving him the placebo? Did Dr. House no longer come to you for injections… or was his pain so severe that the placebo didn't help?"

She pulled herself back together. "No. I informed him about the saline."

"Ah… so, once he knew about it, the placebo effect would no longer work."

"Correct."

"Help me understand. You discounted his pain, blamed it on psychological issues - something you have apparently done more than once - gave him a placebo in place of actual pain medication, and then informed him that you had done so. Would that be accurate?"

"Yes, it would."

"I would think he might be annoyed at finding you had used him as a guinea pig for your theory about psychologically induced pain. What was his reaction when he found out he'd gotten a placebo?"

"I don't recall." But she _did_ remember watching in horror as he dropped his trousers, forcing her to look at the hideous scar on his right thigh - the scar she had caused to be there - begging, with tears in his eyes, for relief. And what had she done? She'd given him a placebo… and then rubbed his nose in the fact that she believed his pain was all psychological. It was getting harder and harder for her to feel blameless, for everything between them to be House's fault and his alone. And yet, she really wasn't ready to discard any of the anger she still felt over House's invasion of her dining room.

"Tell us what happened when he tried to ease his pain with methadone."

"I knew nothing about it until one day in his office, when we found that he had stopped breathing. Shortly afterward, Dr. Wilson told me he thought Dr. House was on heroin, but later we found out he was taking methadone."

"Methadone is a recognized pain treatment. What happened next?"

"I informed Dr. House I wouldn't allow him to take methadone while he worked in my hospital."

Nemesis Lady interjected unexpectedly, dismaying Cuddy, who was beginning to dread her questions almost as much as Wilson had. "Why on earth would you do that?"

"I was trying to get him to see reason."

"About what? You were neither his primary care physician nor his pain management specialist, were you?"

"No, but I was his boss and part of his healthcare team."

"The methadone had been prescribed by his pain doctor, Dr. Chakravarti. Why would you go against Dr. House's own physician in this matter? Why would you think it was your business to interfere with Dr. House's medical treatment?"

"I didn't know he was seeing anyone for pain… and I felt it was too dangerous for him because of the earlier respiratory distress."

"Should that have been your call? The methadone had been legitimately prescribed."

"But I wasn't aware of that."

"It still shouldn't have been your decision. It was up to Dr. House and his physician to decide if methadone's risks were too dangerous, not you. Did you even ask Dr. House how he got the methadone?"

"No..." Another lapse on her part.

"Okay. Go ahead."

"House got angry with me, and quit his job for a couple of days."

"He got angry with you for interfering with a recognized treatment, legally prescribed, for the kind of pain he suffered… a treatment that he found remarkably effective?"

"Yes. I guess so." This wasn't sounding so good, Cuddy realized in an embarrassing moment of clarity.

"Under what circumstances did he return?"

"He came into my office to pick up a letter of recommendation. I had… well, I had purposely not completed it, because I had a counter-proposal for him. I offered him his job back, if he would let me monitor his methadone intake."

"He accepted?"

"Yes."

"Did he have other offers on the table?"

"Apparently so. But I reminded him that he really belonged at PPTH, and he caved."

"Even though you had been underpaying him for years and personally benefitting from his international reputation?"

"I… If you must put it that way, yes." No, this was not sounding good at all. Cuddy didn't like the way the deck was stacking up against her, and yet she couldn't argue too much with the conclusions the panel might draw. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, they had been making reasonable points.

"So, in essence, you played chicken with him, using as a weapon legitimately prescribed medication that had completely eliminated his pain."

"It worked. He came back."

"But at what cost, Dr. Cuddy? At what cost?"

Although Cuddy had been shocked when House had quit over the methadone treatment and had made up her mind not to lose him at her hospital, she was also an astute businesswoman, and intended to play hardball if she had to. It had worked when she'd initially hired House, and she believed it might work again. In fact, it had. "I refused to give him a raise," she said. "I just offered him his old job back, under the condition that I would personally administer the methadone to him."

"You're quite the business barracuda, aren't you? I didn't mean at what financial cost. I meant at what cost to his health."

At the time, that was something Cuddy hadn't even figured into the equation. All she cared about was getting him back to work for her. "It didn't matter. He found that the methadone had negatively impacted his medical judgment, and so he quit using it that very night," she said, challenging the notion that she had ignored House's medical needs. "As far as I know, he never took methadone again."

Nemesis didn't seem to see things that way. "It didn't _matter_?" she asked, her voice rising slightly. "Before you became aware that House was going to quit using methadone, you were willing to sacrifice the possible well-being of a… friend and employee… in order to continue profiting from his presence on your staff?"

Nemesis sounded incredulous, and opened her mouth to continue, but Cuddy interrupted. "I didn't see it that way," she said, determined not to lose on this exchange.

Fortunately for her, the panel chairman intervened. "I can see we're not getting anywhere on this, so let's move on. According to the hospital's financial records, the department of diagnostics was budgeted with an additional $50,000 a year to cover legal expenses. Why was that?"

"I'm sure you know that Dr. House could be abrasive or intrusive with patients. As a result, they sometimes sued, so we budgeted additional funds to cover those lawsuits."

"But we also note that most of those suits were ultimately dropped once Dr. House and his team solved the case. Is that right?"

"Yes."

The questions changed direction. "Explain what happened the day you returned to work after Dr. Cameron had filled in for you."

"Nothing happened. I came back to work. End of story." _Not true_, said a part of her brain she hadn't used in a while. She paid no attention to it.

"That's not what we have heard, Dr. Cuddy. From what we have been told, you resented him for some reason, and then you forced Dr. House to climb four flights of stairs, stole his cane from him, set a trip wire in his office - which injured him - had his home's heat and power turned off, and possibly other things as well. Do you believe this is an appropriate way to treat a disabled employee?"

The memory of how angry she'd been at the time came flooding back, and Cuddy burst out a defense: "He never wanted to be treated as disabled… and besides, he made me come back to work when I would have preferred to stay home with my daughter."

The woman at the end of the panel suddenly barked at her, causing her to jump in her chair. "_Excuse _me, Dr. Cuddy? He _made_ you come back to work? What are you – six? Aren't you a grownup? Don't you have control over your own life? Are you not capable of handling a situation without resorting to vengeance against an employee… a _disabled _employee?"

Cuddy stared at her, openmouthed.

The woman continued, almost without taking a breath. "Could you not have found someone else to manage things for a few days? Perhaps a board member, or Dr. Wilson, or an administrator from outside the hospital? And why do you believe that your own decision to return to work was somehow Dr. House's fault and deserved retribution? Why not blame Dr. Cameron, who had refused to continue filling in for you? Really, Dr. Cuddy, what were you thinking?"

Cuddy was taken aback, her anger flaming out as quickly as it had come upon her. "I guess I wasn't thinking very clearly," she admitted, lamely.

"I guess you weren't. Did Dr. House file any charges against you for assault or for violating the Americans With Disabilities Act?"

"No, he didn't."

"Then you should consider yourself fortunate."

Cuddy was shocked. "I guess, in retrospect, I should."

The panel chair, interjected at this point, and Cuddy sighed.

"That's enough for now. Let's take a 15-minute break and meet back here at eleven o'clock."


	34. Day 9, 11 am Dr Lisa Cuddy 3

**Day Nine, 11 a.m.**

During the break, Cuddy spent most of her time in the ladies' room, touching up her makeup and doing a little yoga to try to relax herself. When she returned to the inquiry room, it seemed much cooler than before, thank goodness.

Fortunately for Cuddy, the panel chair, not the annoying woman with the difficult questions, resumed the questioning. "Dr. Cuddy, we'd like to spend a few minutes on what happened just before Dr. House was admitted to Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital. At what point did you become aware there was a problem?"

Okay… this seemed relatively safe. "He had said something quite unpleasant to me one evening as I was getting ready to leave. The next day, he behaved oddly all day, and then announced from the balcony overlooking the lobby that we had slept together. Well, I was furious. First, I tried to fire him, and then we had a confrontation in my office… suddenly, he sort of collapsed - I don't mean physically… I mean he deflated emotionally."

_That was one of the worst moments of her life, seeing House, always so sure of his mind, lose the one thing he valued most. When she'd finally realized something was seriously wrong and had looked closely at him, he was so distant… so devastated… that he almost didn't look like himself. _"Then he told me he had been suffering from hallucinations for awhile, and that he'd just realized he'd also had a delusion… in particular, a delusion about me. I took him in to Dr. Wilson, who then arranged for him to go to Mayfield."

"Did you, or any of the other physicians on staff, check Dr. House out for possible physical causes for those hallucinations?"

"I understood from Dr. Wilson that Dr. House himself eliminated everything except Vicodin as a possible cause."

At a nod from the chairman, the man at her far right got up and brought her a scrap of envelope. Unwillingly, she took it from him as the panel chair asked, "Is this Dr. House's handwriting? Is this his self-diagnosis?"

She looked it over before handing it back to the panelist, who returned to his seat while she answered. "Yes, I believe it is."

"These are the items Dr. House listed and crossed out as possible causes, correct?"

She nodded, not wanting to give the panel any more than was necessary, hoping to end this farce as quickly as possible.

"Did you notice anything missing from this list that might have contributed to his problems at the time?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Besides, House was one of the greatest diagnosticians in the world. I would have had no reason to second guess him."

"Not even when he had readily admitted to mental impairment?"

"No… I... I guess not." Wilson had shown her the list, and told her how House had systematically gone through it until only Vicodin remained.

"You have already told us that you often challenged Dr. House's medical judgment about a patient, refusing some of the tests and treatments he proposed. Are you telling us that you felt it was all right to question his judgment about patient care, but not about his own health, where he probably could have used an objective viewpoint?"

"Yes, I suppose I am." She had a bad feeling about this. Taking a deep, calming breath, she braced herself.

"We have looked over this list and compared it to Dr. House's medical history, and we see one very big omission."

"And what would that be?" Quickly losing the momentary calm the deep breath had given her, Cuddy was now finding it hard to either catch her breath or contain her irritation. She was getting very tired of having everything she'd ever done disputed by this panel, especially when she didn't want to be here in the first place.

"Three years prior, Dr. House had experienced a severe brain injury as a result of a bus crash. Following that injury, which was barely treated at all, he pushed himself to the limits of his endurance, and then underwent a deep brain stimulation - a very dangerous procedure conducted for no medical reason that we can determine. If his cracked skull, his insistence on continuing to work while injured or the DBS performed on him had long-lasting effects - which they certainly might have - they could quite easily have contributed to his mental confusion."

"That… that never occurred to me." _Oh, God. _

"Apparently, Dr. House also suffered a few subsequent head injuries before he went to Mayfield, which would have compounded the problem. Let's see…" The panel chair looked through his notes. "Ah. Here it is. He was in a motorcycle accident, may have sustained some kind of injury when the SWAT team attempted to capture the gunman holding him and others hostage, not to mention a fall off his chair only the day before his psychotic break. And those are just the ones we know about."

"I suppose traumatic brain injury might have contributed to the problem," she admitted, shocked that she hadn't considered the possibility at the time.

Throughout this session, the woman at the end of the table had, thank goodness, been silent. After adjusting her reading glasses and shuffling through some papers, she now spoke up. "Dr. Cuddy," she began, and Cuddy's heart sank, "you mentioned that Dr. House said he'd had a delusion, as well as having hallucinated for a few days. Is that correct?"

"Yes," said Cuddy cautiously, not sure where this was going.

"I would hope that you know that hallucinations and delusions of the type Dr. House apparently experienced are not terribly rare in people who have had serious traumatic brain injuries such as the one Dr. House experienced. The mental impairment sometimes does not show itself until months or even years after the initial injury. In addition, the dangerous effects of brain trauma are compounded with each subsequent head injury."

"I was aware of that," said Cuddy, although she couldn't honestly say she'd ever read anything specific about the hallucinations and delusions aspect of TBI.

"On the other hand, according to an FDA study of… let's see…" She closely scanned down the paper in her hand. "Ah, here it is. According to an FDA study of 29,661 Vicodin users and abusers, literally _zero percent _of them suffered from delusions." Nemesis Lady looked up over her reading glasses and stared Cuddy right in the eye until Cuddy became so disconcerted that she finally looked away.

Cuddy was flabbergasted. _Zero percent? _Zero_ percent?! How could that be?_

"Did you know about this, Dr. Cuddy? Do you know if Dr. Wilson… or Dr. Nolan… were aware of this information?"

"N-no… no. I hadn't realized that." She needed to pull herself together, and fast. "I really don't know if Drs. Wilson or Nolan knew that fact."

"So you simply took Dr. House's word for it that the Vicodin was causing his symptoms and never got another opinion from someone who might have provided an objective diagnosis for Dr. House's symptoms?"

_Damn, damn, damn_, thought Cuddy, feeling almost physically ill. She couldn't believe it had never dawned on her to suspect a physical cause other than the Vicodin. She and Wilson had been so sure his addiction had caused his symptoms… they'd been almost eager to believe House's analysis of the situation, because they were already inclined to think that all of his problems were caused by Vicodin.

Her lack of objectivity - and Wilson's, because she wasn't willing to let him off the hook on this - had clearly led to a missed diagnosis for House's delusion, and probably for his hallucinations as well. It was just what House had always accused her of: Leading with her feelings instead of her mind. Maybe she really was as bad a doctor as House had always suggested. Had their mistake about what caused House's breakdown kept him from being treated appropriately? Had he continued to suffer mental impairment because of their neglect? What were the consequences on House's health because of this huge error in judgment? Oh, God, she _really_ didn't want to go there.

"Dr. Cuddy?" Nemesis Lady's voice cut through Cuddy's mental fog. "Would you please answer the question?"

Cuddy closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply again to gather her strength before answering. "Yes. We took his word for it. And no, we did not get another opinion about the cause of Dr. House's problem. Based on his self-diagnosis, we just assumed…" House's voice, mocking people who assume things, echoed in her mind.

Grabbing the bottle of water in front of her, she aggressively twisted off the cap, and took a big swallow, hoping the water would not only cool her off, but that the act of taking a drink might give her enough time to prepare for the next question, which she earnestly hoped would _not_ come from the woman to her left. For the first time since her testimony had started, Lisa Cuddy lucked out. The next question reverted to the chairman.

"Please tell us what happened after Dr. House was released from Mayfield."

Having now calmed herself down somewhat, she answered evenly. "At first, he refused to come back to work. He said he didn't think it would be good for his recovery."

"And how did you react to that?"

"I accepted it, although, I guess, in the back of my mind, I was trying to find a way to convince him to return."

"Because his talent was so valuable to the hospital?"

"Yes." And because she'd missed the excitement of having him around. She'd wanted him back in her life.

"Then what happened?"

"Eventually, he decided to return, and I helped him get his medical license reinstated." In fact, she'd bypassed the reinstatement rules just to get him back to treating patients sooner.

"And once he returned to his job? Then what?"

"Things went back to normal," she said. Normal, except for the fact that she was now involved with Lucas… and had been determined to keep that information from House.

"What exactly did you do when Dr. House finally returned to work after his time at Mayfield?"

"Pretty much what I had always done," she replied. "Gave him cases, tried to rein in his insanity, made sure he worked his clinic hours and filled out his paperwork." Had she really just used the word _insanity_ to describe someone who had just been released from a mental institution? Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the woman to her left react strongly to that word, but she'd said nothing, for which Cuddy was grateful.

"About that paperwork, Dr. Cuddy," said the chairman, apparently taking the questioning in a new direction, one that Cuddy hoped would be less disturbing to her. "Could you please explain to us why Dr. House was not assigned an administrative assistant to handle his paperwork for him, when all the other department heads were?"

Not bad. This seemed like a fairly safe question. "His department was much smaller than the others," she answered.

"But bringing in more money. Also, from what we've heard, because of his increasing fame, Dr. House received numerous requests for his services in the mail every week. Should the size of the department preclude his getting administrative help? And was it a good use of your time or his to deal with his paperwork?"

"I saw it as an essential part of both of our jobs. Besides, he didn't want an assistant."

"His desires shouldn't have been part of the equation, should they, Dr. Cuddy? Especially if it would make his department function more smoothly. It sounds to me as if this might have been a way to micromanage Dr. House with busywork that could - and should - have been handled by an assistant. Busywork that distracted him from taking on more cases."

"That's not how I saw it. I felt he needed to be more disciplined." Cuddy always felt secure talking about management issues. Her job at PPTH had been more important to her than anything, and she'd poured her entire being into her career and that hospital. Both of which had been damaged nearly as badly as her home had after House drove through the middle of her dining room.

_She'd never been so humiliated in her life as when she started hearing from colleagues all over the country who had seen the story on the national news. Suddenly, she'd gone from being the high-powered dean of medicine at a world-class hospital to the victim of domestic violence… not a role she was comfortable with. No, she was the strong, capable, take-charge woman… not the victim. And yet, how else could she describe herself now? House had gone nuts (yet again) and had taken her down with him. How could he have done this to her?_

After a pause to take a couple of notes, the panel chairman went on. "From what we can tell, Dr. House seems to have been remarkably disciplined when it came to performing the main function of his job, which was to diagnose lost causes."

"He was almost a savant that way," replied Cuddy, trying by sheer force to squeeze all those extraneous thoughts out of her mind. "I was just attempting to get him to be more responsible about the less flamboyant parts of his job."

"Like the clinic?"

"Yes. Like the clinic." _Was that a dig? _Cuddy wondered. The panel members clearly had issues with having House work in the clinic.

"Several of the witnesses have described Dr. House's practical jokes, meddlesome nature, distractions, and apparent laziness on the job. However, numerous studies do show that when extraordinarily bright and creative people get bored, they often get into trouble. Is it possible that if Dr. House had been allowed to devote all of his brainpower to diagnosing patients, he might have been less troublesome to deal with?"

_This_ got Cuddy's attention. She'd never really considered the possibility that she might not have been working to House's strengths, or managing him in the best way possible. She'd always been so damned sure of herself and her methods. However, if what this man said was true - and they certainly seemed to have done their homework - maybe… just maybe… another approach might have worked better, and might have kept House from being so difficult. "Actually," she admitted. "I'm not sure. It seemed to be the right approach at the time."

"Trying to get him to conform?"

"Yes. Trying to get him to conform." But would House ever have been able to conform? Was her attempt to make him do so an exercise in futility for both of them?

The questioning got back on track at this point. "What workplace accommodations were made to support Dr. House in his recovery after he returned to PPTH following his stint at Mayfield?"

"There weren't any, really. Initially, until his medical license was reinstated, he worked in the department on an advisory basis. Once he got his medical license again, things returned to normal, as I said."

"So there was no psychological counseling to help him adjust?"

"As far as I know, he was continuing to see Dr. Nolan on a regular basis."

"As far as you know?"

"Yes. I wasn't really involved."

"Dr. Nolan tells us that he tried repeatedly to reach you, but that you never returned his calls."

"I didn't see the need to. House was back at work and seemed to be doing okay."

"Seemed to be? How much interaction did you actually have with him during this time, Dr. Cuddy?"

"I guess it was about the same as before." _No, it wasn't_, said that part of her mind she was trying so very hard not to listen to. _You know perfectly well that you were avoiding him, hoping he didn't find out you were fooling around with his friend Lucas._

"You seem to have been remarkably detached from the progress of a prized employee who had just suffered a serious mental breakdown."

_Okay. Tell the truth. That's good. Be honest. _"To be honest, I was involved with someone else at the time, and was trying to keep my distance from Dr. House."

"Would this have been his friend, Lucas Douglas?"

"Yes." _Oh… they knew about Lucas already, did they?_

"We understand you refrained from telling him or Dr. Wilson that you were in a relationship with Mr. Douglas. Is that right?"

"Yes. I didn't tell Dr. Wilson, because I knew he'd tell House. And I felt that if House knew, he would try to break us up."

"Because the two of you had seemed to be on a trajectory toward a relationship yourselves before his breakdown?"

"Something like that. He was obsessed with me. Sometimes, it was verging on stalker behavior." Cuddy remembered all those dates when House would show up at a restaurant or on her doorstep, just to mess with her.

"Interesting. How did you react to this 'stalker behavior'?"

_The moment at her front door when House had, yet again, crashed one of her dates, this one with that Eastern Lube guy, popped into her head. "Do you like me?" she'd asked him._ Without taking time to think about the ramifications of it, her answer popped out. "I asked him if he liked me," she answered, realizing as she said it that if she'd really believed House was stalking her, this wasn't a very productive way to get him to get him to stop. In fact, she'd purposely taunted him, because she'd been more flattered by his attention than annoyed, and had secretly wanted him to declare himself.

"That doesn't sound as if you believed he was stalking you, Dr. Cuddy. In fact, it sounds as if you were encouraging his behavior."

"No," she said, once again on the spot. "I was trying to get him to admit that he was interfering with my private life."

"Back to what happened after Dr. House left Mayfield… would you say you weren't close enough to Dr. House at this time to take note of his progress after leaving Mayfield?"

"I wasn't aware of any progress."

Nemesis interjected. "That wasn't the question, Dr. Cuddy. Were you paying attention to what was going on with him or not?"

Cuddy gritted her teeth. "I was not. I was trying to avoid him… I didn't want to hurt him."

Nemesis Lady stared at her incredulously. "You didn't want to _hurt_ him? So you intended to hide your relationship with Mr. Douglas from Dr. House until he stumbled on the information? Would you say that, in the long run, your avoidance approach kept him from being hurt… or do you think perhaps he was more hurt when he realized you had hidden the relationship from him?"

Trying not to betray how defensive she felt, Cuddy replied as calmly as she could. "I wouldn't know," she said. "He was still fragile, and I thought if he knew I was seeing Lucas, it might set back his recovery."

The panel chair jumped back in, thank God, but only to reiterate what the female panelist had just mentioned. "We understand that at a medical conference, Dr. House discovered, completely by accident, that you were now involved with his friend, Mr. Douglas."

"Correct."

"And that before he learned about your relationship, the two of you had shared a dance at one of the conference events."

That information could only have come from Wilson."Yes, that's right," Cuddy said, remembering how open House had been with her during that dance, confessing that he had always cared about her, but that he had been expelled from Michigan the morning after their one night together, which was why he had left so suddenly. She had found herself so drawn to him that night… and yet, Lucas was waiting upstairs in their room. That knot in the pit of her stomach made itself known again.

"We also understand that the morning after the conference ended, you and Mr. Douglas had breakfast with Dr. House and Dr. Wilson."

"Yes, we did."

"Give us your take on how that breakfast went."

Cuddy suddenly realized where this was going, and she felt ill, the knot twisting around in her gut. "I… uh… we shared a pleasant meal."

"How did Dr. House behave at that breakfast?"

"Ummm… well, he was remarkably civil."

"You sound surprised."

"I guess I was."

"Would you say that he seemed to have taken the news you were involved with his friend relatively well?"

"That's what I thought at the time."

"Then what happened?"

"That's pretty much it. Then we all returned to Princeton," she said, hoping against hope that the panel knew nothing of what had come next. Her hopes were doomed to failure. She heard House's voice in her head saying, _Hope is for sissies_.

"From what we've heard, that wasn't exactly how it went, Dr. Cuddy. Isn't it true that Mr. Douglas taunted Dr. House about his time at Mayfield and the delusion about you that had precipitated it? That he talked about how Dr. House came to be treated as an in-patient at Mayfield?"

_Shit_, thought Cuddy. _Damn Wilson and his big mouth!_ "I seem to recall something like that," she said, trying to forestall the inevitable train wreck headed her way.

"How did he learn this information?"

For just a moment, Cuddy considered throwing Lucas under the train, of claiming that he'd bugged her office, or some such thing. But that wasn't the truth, and for all she knew, they'd talked to Lucas, too. _Everybody lies_, said that House voice in her head. _True_, said her own conscience in reply, _but that doesn't mean I have to do it right here, right now. Beside, if I do lie, there's no guarantee I won't get tripped up by my lies later on._

"I might have let something slip," she said, hedging her bet, and hoping against hope that this wasn't going the direction she was really afraid it was going. "He was a friend of House's, and he was aware that House hadn't been around for awhile."

"As PPTH's administrator, you must have realized what a serious breach of HIPAA this was… that there was no justification whatsoever for sharing Dr. House's confidential medical information with your boyfriend. You were part of Dr. House's healthcare team, and, as such, his medical and psychiatric information was supposed to be kept strictly on a need-to-know basis with other medical professionals."

Cuddy's brain whirred, trying to find a way out of the mess she herself had created. "It was a momentary lapse," she finally settled on.

"A pretty big lapse, Dr. Cuddy. One that was not only unethical by any standard, but had to have been very hurtful to Dr. House, who, as far as we can tell, was working hard on his recovery, and had been attempting to be fairly high-minded in a very awkward circumstance."

"I'll admit that it was a big lapse," Cuddy said, trying to retain her equanimity. Please - _please_ - let this not come back to bite me in the butt, she thought. All of a sudden, out of the blue, she remembered just how many times House had admired that very attribute of her body, and she flushed in embarrassment.

Thank God, they dropped that avenue of questioning and moved on. "Once you got back to Princeton, since Dr. House was now aware of your relationship with Mr. Douglas, what happened?"

Cuddy felt on firmer ground here. That was when House had been the one behaving badly, and she was much more comfortable looking at House's flaws than her own. "He kept trying to interfere in our relationship."

"As he had with some of your previous relationships?"

"Yes."

"How did you react to that interference?"

"I expected it, so I didn't feel the need to react particularly."

"Tell us what happened at Thanksgiving."

Cuddy felt her confidence returning. "House tried to finagle his way into my family Thanksgiving dinner… I'm positive he intended to make trouble between Lucas and me. We decided to make sure he wouldn't be there to cause any difficulties, so I invited him, but said we would be getting together at my sister's house upstate, rather than at my home in Princeton, which is where we actually held the dinner." She remembered how pleased with herself she'd felt when she'd come up with that scheme.

"So on Thanksgiving Day - the one holiday of the year that is intended to celebrate gratitude and generosity - you sent your disabled employee on a wild goose chase that involved, as we understand it, a three-hour drive, where he received only a cold turkey sandwich for his Thanksgiving dinner… and then another three-hour drive home. Does that accurately reflect what you did to him?"

_Ouch. It sounded pretty bad, worded that way._ "Yes, I suppose so."

"Surely, you could simply have told him he wasn't welcome, without humiliating him and aggravating his disability in that way."

Cuddy felt that cornered feeling creeping up on her again. "No, no… it wasn't like that. We knew he would find a way to show up anyway. It was the only thing we could think of to keep him out of the way."

Ms. Nemesis had a question, which didn't bode well for Cuddy. "Did you manage Dr. House at work in much that same way, Dr. Cuddy?"

"I beg your pardon?" A now very defensive Cuddy suddenly found herself on alert.

"I mean, were you as manipulative and cruel to him on the job as you clearly were in your personal life?"

Feeling attacked, Cuddy drew in a deep breath. Pulling herself up straighter, she tried to defend herself by going on the attack, a strategy that generally got opponents to back off. "I really don't appreciate your tone. Dr. House behaved in childish and outrageous ways, so sometimes it took outrageous responses to get him to back off."

_Yeah… like replacing his Vicodin with laxatives. Now _that _was really mature._ Cuddy prayed that Wilson hadn't mentioned that particular ethical lapse to the committee. She hadn't thought about the whole laxative-Vicodin-birth control moment for years. To be honest, she'd been trying hard not to think about House at all. But that particular moment, especially in light of the way the panel had been pointing out how walking around aggravated House's leg pain, was making her cringe. Had she caused him more pain by making him get up and hobble off to the men's room all day? Oh, well. Served him right. Most of the time, he was certainly a pain in what he might have termed her ample ass.

Nemesis Lady seemed to read her mind. "Really, Dr. Cuddy? As with those mean-spirited so-called 'pranks' you pulled on him, it seems to me that your response in this instance was extremely out of proportion to Dr. House's actions. This shows a serious lack of judgment and compassion on your part."

"What do you mean?" asked Cuddy, still speaking confidently so that she sounded firmly in charge. She knew exactly what was meant, but she had no intention of admitting it.

"I mean, couldn't you have found a more benign, less hurtful way to keep Dr. House away? For example, couldn't you have asked Dr. Wilson to spend Thanksgiving with Dr. House, or one of his fellows or other friends? Couldn't you have been firm with him about not allowing him to interfere with your new relationship… and stuck by your guns? If you were going to manipulate him, it seems to me that there were plenty of other options, without tricking him and doing it in such a heartless manner."

_That_ got her. Cuddy swallowed. That lump in her stomach had traveled up into her esophagus. She whispered her response: "I suppose I could have."

Fortunately for her, the chairman decided to call lunch. "We'll take a lunch break now, and return at 1 p.m.," he said. Cuddy nearly ran out of the room.


	35. Day 9, 1 pm Dr Lisa Cuddy 4

**Day Nine, 1 p.m.**

Cuddy had no appetite for lunch, and so spent the lunch break once again in the ladies' room, doing yoga, splashing cool water on her face, touching up her makeup and trying to remain calm. It was a more chastened Lisa Cuddy who came back into the room after the break and seated herself back before the panel.

They got right to it. After going through his notes just long enough to make Cuddy a bit jumpy, the panel chairman started off the session with this: "Dr. Cuddy, were you aware that on more than one occasion while you were seeing him, Lucas Douglas broke into Dr. Wilson's condo - the condo you had hoped to buy - and repeatedly caused considerable damage, both to the condo and to Dr. House personally?"

Despite the unsettled feeling that this line of questioning wasn't going to make her any happier than the questions from the previous session, she was grateful for any change of topic. "No… no, I didn't know that." She had suspected it, of course, but at least she could answer honestly that she hadn't _known_ it.

"Not even after he tripped Dr. House in your hospital's cafeteria - again injuring him - and announced what he had done before a roomful of people?"

That lump in her throat got bigger. Now she was having trouble catching her breath. She hadn't realized that Lucas had actually injured House… or apparently had done so twice. "I had heard there was some kind of confrontation, but I didn't know exactly what had happened." _Liar_, said the part of her brain that had been checking in every so often.

"Were there security cameras in the cafeteria?"

"Yes," she replied with a sinking feeling that things were about to get much worse.

"Did you ever review those security tapes?"

"Not in that particular instance, although I did review them sometimes, when it seemed warranted." Thinking back, she remembered purposely avoiding those specific tapes, trying to remain technically ignorant of exactly what had taken place between Lucas and House. She hadn't wanted to see any evidence that Lucas wasn't the sweet, good-natured man she wanted to believe he was. She hadn't wanted to know he was capable of that kind of malicious behavior… or that House might, just this once, be an innocent victim.

"Speaking of security, we have been made aware that on at least two occasions, Dr. House was attacked on hospital grounds - the first time when he was shot, and the second when he and several staff people and patients were taken hostage."

"That's correct." So far, so good. Maybe things would ease up now.

"Was the shooter in the first incident ever apprehended?"

"No. He got out of the hospital before the police arrived."

"And your security people were unable to apprehend him?"

"They didn't realize what had happened until after the man left the property."

"After Dr. House was shot, did you take any steps to improve security at the hospital? Install a metal detector in the lobby, upgrade the security camera system, or anything like that?"

"No, I didn't see the need to. It had been a singular incident, and was unlikely to happen again."

"And yet, within a few years, another major security breach took place. Shouldn't it have been your responsibility as administrator to ensure the safety of your employees and the patients visiting the hospital?"

_Ouch! _"Yes, but as I said, I assumed the first time was unique."

"But it wasn't, was it, Dr. Cuddy?"

"No, I guess not."

"Did you discuss security with your board of directors after Dr. House was shot?"

"I seem to recall some discussion of the event."

"Did the board agree not to beef up security?"

"Ultimately, yes."

"Ultimately?"

"I think I recall a few of the board members urging me to spend some of the annual budget to improve our security system."

"Whose decision was it not to do that… yours or the board's?"

"Mine, I think, although after all this time, I'm not positive the idea originated with me. I think I felt it was an inefficient use of our funds… and the board agreed with me." In retrospect, Cuddy wasn't sure she'd made the wisest choice. Security at public buildings around the country was being bolstered because there had been so many incidents of malicious or crazed people with guns or knives endangering those inside.

"And the second security breach… tell us about your reaction to the hostage situation."

"I was terribly concerned about the hostages."

"Including Dr. House?"

"Yes… as well as the others."

"Of course, in the second instance, the damage done by the gunman and the SWAT team wound up being fairly expensive, didn't it?"

"Yes, but our insurance covered most of that."

"Were the hospital's insurance rates raised because of the incident?"

_These people are too sharp_, thought Cuddy. "Yes. They were," she replied.

"And how much money did you lose because the hospital was shut down during the hostage crisis?"

That question took her off guard. "I'm not really sure. It's been a long time. I would think you'd have that information available to you already." She waved her left hand vaguely in the general direction of the piles of paper on the long table. _There. Put the responsibility back on them to dig it out._

"Tell us what you did in the days following that second episode."

_Uh-oh_, said that little voice in Cuddy's head. _Now we know where this is going, don't we? Beware!_ She chose her words carefully, trying to omit anything that might put her back in the hot seat. "My office had been damaged during the crisis, and needed to be repaired, so I decided to renovate, which took a few weeks."

"During those few weeks, where did you work?"

"In Dr. House's office."

"Why?"

"I'm sorry… why _what_?"

"Why did you work in Dr. House's office? Surely there was other office space available. From what we have gathered, your office was on the main floor with the clinic and the ER, and his was all the way up on the fourth floor."

The room had grown more stifling as the early afternoon heat built up, and Cuddy felt perspiration dripping down over her forehead and into her left eyelid. She dabbed at it with one elegantly manicured finger, trying not to smudge her eye makeup. "I chose to work in his office, because I believed he was responsible for the damage, and felt he should be as inconvenienced as I was." _That sounded pretty lame_, she thought. And it really wasn't the whole story, anyway.

"You thought _he_ had damaged your office? I thought the damage came about because the gunman took several people hostage there… and…" he rummaged through the papers in front of him. "…and… yes… apparently shot one of them. Why would you blame Dr. House for that damage? And more to the point, why would you think that an appropriate reaction was to force an employee who had just been through a traumatic hostage situation to share his office space with you, thereby altering his work environment?"

"No, it wasn't like that at all," she insisted. "He deserved it. He was directly responsible. If he hadn't encouraged the guy, there would have been no damage."

"You can't know that for sure, can you, Dr. Cuddy? Isn't it possible the situation might have escalated even further?"

Cuddy huffed in frustration. "I suppose so," she admitted, albeit reluctantly. "Besides, he marked on my wall."

"Marked on your wall? How?"

"He didn't have a whiteboard, so he used my wall to try to diagnose the man."

"Again, why would you punish Dr. House for that by making him share his office with you?"

The memory of that morning was suddenly in sharp focus. After riding with House in the elevator up to the fourth floor, she'd walked side by side with him down the hall toward his office. What had she said? "My office was recently destroyed. I thought I'd use the office of the doctor directly responsible." He'd responded, "I think the patient holding the gun to my head was actually the one directly responsible." Which, to be fair, was technically true. Then she'd come back with some smart-ass remark about her desk not fitting in the guy's jail cell. Once they got to House's office, she'd proceeded to kick him out altogether, telling him he could use the conference room as his office instead. Eventually she allowed him to share his desk with her, an imaginary dividing line separating her half from his.

Wilson had said something to her later on. What was it? "Don't take his office and pretend like all you're doing is taking his office. You chose his room because you want to be there. But sitting near him and hoping isn't going get it done."

What motivation could she have had, other than to try to escalate sexual tension between herself and House? Her rationale for taking over his office really made no coherent sense; there was no other explanation for her behavior than that she was trying to get into his pants. How the hell was she going to explain this in any way that was understandable to this panel of men and women who weren't there at the time… and who did not seem inclined to be sympathetic toward her, despite the fact that she'd had to put up with House for all those years, and had had her home and career torpedoed by his insanity?

Now, with everything that had happened since, she couldn't even imagine what she must have been thinking. Why the hell had she been so determined to entice House into a love affair, when hindsight made it very obvious that any relationship between them was damned to hell from the start?

Sighing heavily, she clenched her jaw and answered as tactfully as she could. "I guess I just wanted to get in his face about it. I… we… we had been kind of dancing around each other for a long time. I thought maybe if we shared space, he would declare himself." Cuddy was flustered enough that she didn't realize she'd set a trap for herself and then walked right into it.

"I assume this was prior to Dr. House's time at Mayfield."

"Yes, that's right."

"So you used this disturbing situation to try to manipulate Dr. House - your employee - into starting a sexual relationship with you?"

"No! No… that's not it at all." _Yes, yes, it is_, said that horrid little voice growing louder in her head.

"Then what is it?"

She threw out the phrase that usually got House to shut up. "He owed me." There. That was clear enough.

"He owed you _what_?"

"He just owed me." Right this second, in this pressure cooker, Cuddy couldn't even think straight enough to get herself out of this mess. The panel chair was so right - she had been sexually teasing House, but whether she'd really wanted to start a relationship with him, or had intended to smack him down if he made a move, she couldn't recall. Then, he'd been such a boor and had grabbed her breast… and that had been that. For a while.

She certainly wasn't going to admit before this unsympathetic panel that she had tried to manipulate one of her employees into a sexual relationship. Fortunately, the panel chair changed the topic, although the new topic still left her on the hot seat.

"Dr. Cuddy, could you please give us your recollections of the sequence of events following the death of Dr. House's father?"

Shutting her eyes for just a moment, Cuddy resigned herself to facing the music. "Dr. Wilson had informed me that he'd gotten a call from Dr. House's mother, who told him that Dr. House had been avoiding her calls after his father died." She left out the part where she led House to believe that Mrs. House had called her directly.

"This would have been a few months following the death of Dr. Volakis, after Dr. Wilson had resigned from Princeton-Plainsboro for a time and was no longer speaking to Dr. House… is that correct?"

"Yes, it is."

"Then what happened?"

"I went to Dr. House's office to talk to him about it, and to let him know that his mother wanted him to give the eulogy at his father's funeral."

"Which Dr. House had no intention of attending..."

"Yes, that's right."

"As we understand it, though, he ultimately did attend, with Dr. Wilson."

"Also correct."

"How did his attendance come about, please?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nemesis Lady watching her sharply, reminding Cuddy of a cat about to pounce. "I… I had promised Dr. Wilson I would arrange for Dr. House to be in his car later that morning."

"From what we've heard, Dr. Wilson was reluctant to take Dr. House to the funeral, but did so because Mrs. House had asked him to bring her son. Would that correlate with your memory of the situation?" _Was there anything these people didn't know about? _Cuddy certainly hoped so.

"Yes, it would."

"How did you convince Dr. House to go with Dr. Wilson?"

Here we go, she thought. "As I said, I went to Dr. House's office to express my sympathies, and to encourage him to write the eulogy, because his mother had requested it." And to drug him into a stupor, she added mentally.

"What was Dr. House's reaction to your sympathy and your encouragement?"

"He deflected, which was how he always dealt with things."

That was true enough, wasn't it? _Not always_, said that little voice. There were at least a couple of times when it was House trying to get _her_ to talk about something during the time they were together, and she was the one deflecting. After he'd lied to her about how he'd come up with a solution to his patient's case, House was the one who had asked her, "Can't we even talk about it?" How had she responded? "You can't apologize… we can't talk." She'd simply shut him down.

And then there was that night, right toward the end, when he hadn't showed for the charity gala where she was getting an award, instead turning up on her doorstep later that night, drenched to the bone and drunk as a skunk. What had he said? "We really, really need to talk." And once again, she'd simply shut him down. "You screwed up big time," she'd told him, right before he confessed that she made him a worse doctor and that he'd always choose her over medicine… a huge concession on his part.

It wasn't until the next day that she'd discovered he'd lost his patient, and had been out drinking because he was flagellating himself over missed opportunities with patients who had died since the two of them had become a couple. No wonder he'd insisted that she made him a worse doctor. Maybe she had, by pressuring him on the job in ways she never would have before. He'd been devastated by yet another patient death, but she hadn't even bothered to ask if there were any extenuating circumstances for his absence from the banquet, or for his drunken state. How much of a relationship compromise had it been for him to confess that, despite those needless patient deaths, he'd always choose her? And she had never mentioned the mariachi band… yet another thoughtful gift she'd never thanked him for.

"Did he tell you _why_ he might have been reluctant to go to his father's funeral, Dr. Cuddy?"

"No. He just deflected, as always," she repeated. She got a little worried when she saw several panel members searching through their notes and then jotting things down on their legal pads.

Here came the cat. Nemesis Lady. _Oh, goody._ "Did Dr. House ever talk to you about his father?"

Cuddy searched through her memories. "Not that I recall," she said, "other than telling me once that he didn't hate his mother, but he hated his father. Why do you ask?"

"More to the point, why do _you_ think he hated his father?" Nemesis asked, looking her right in the eye.

All of a sudden, light dawned, and Cuddy felt that nasty knot in her stomach clench. Oh, dear lord, she thought. He was abused. _That's _what he told Eve. _That's_ what got her to open up to him about her rape. _That's_ why he was trying to avoid giving the eulogy for his father. What had he said? Something about being willing to give a bastardogy, or words to that effect. "Oh, my God!" she blurted out. "His father abused him, didn't he?"

Nemesis shrugged, her eyes hooded. "Perhaps, Dr. Cuddy. But go on with your story."

"I… uh… told him I needed to give him an IG shot because his patient, who had contracted SARS, had coughed in his face." Always pleased with herself when she got the upper hand with House, she remembered feeling so very clever about how she tricked him into letting her drug him. Now, she merely felt sick. How could she - and Wilson - somehow, she thought, Wilson was always at the heart of these intrigues - have forced House to attend the funeral of the man who had abused him as a child without taking House's own feelings about the situation into consideration? He'd said he hated his dad… why hadn't that been enough for them? Why had they felt the need to override his obvious reluctance to go to that funeral?

"But it wasn't an IG shot, was it, Dr. Cuddy?"

Reluctantly, she shook her head. "No. Yes. Well, it wasn't _just _an IG. It was also propofol." She'd planned it all out, even bringing a wheelchair with her so she could roll House down to Wilson's waiting car. What she hadn't counted on was Taub showing up just as House collapsed, or the fact that she couldn't heft House into the wheelchair without help.

The panel chairman took over the questioning. "Let me make sure I understand exactly what you're saying here, Dr. Cuddy. You went against Dr. House's express wishes in this matter - which had a more than reasonable basis - drugged him unconscious, and then you and Dr. Wilson essentially kidnapped him against his will and forced him into attending the funeral of the man who had abused him as a child. Would that be accurate?"

Cuddy thought she was going to throw up. Without intending to the chairman had confirmed that House had indeed been abused. She closed her eyes and swallowed convulsively, trying to catch her breath and very glad she'd had no lunch. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she nodded. "Yes. I… I'm sorry to say that it is."

"How did Dr. House react toward you once he returned from the funeral? Did he hold your felony kidnapping against you?"

_Felony kidnapping_. She and Wilson had committed an actual crime against House… a felony. By this point, Cuddy could scarcely breathe. "No… no. I don't think he did." Gathering her strength, she added, "I think he was just happy to have Dr. Wilson back as a friend."

"You do realize that in the state of New Jersey, kidnapping is a First Degree felony that carries a potential sentence of 10 to 20 years? Plus, I believe Dr. Wilson crossed state lines during the execution of this felony, which would make what the two of you did a federal offense as well."

Feeling faint, Cuddy went pale and gripped the edge of the desk in front of her for balance. All she could think of was House, sent to prison for damaging her home… when she just as easily could have been sent to prison to serve a much longer sentence, for what she and Wilson had done to him. The difference was that House had forgiven her, but she had never forgiven him. If she had, would she be sitting here now, having to confront her past actions in this wrenchingly painful way?

"N-n-no… I didn't."

"Once again, Dr. Cuddy, you should consider yourself lucky. In this case, because Dr. House - despite his other, more obvious, flaws - clearly had a forgiving nature toward the people he cared about."

Because words escaped her, Cuddy merely nodded. That soap-opera actor popped into her thoughts, and how House had kidnapped him… but no charges had ever been filed because House had saved the man's life. How idiotic that was… but was it any stupider than what she - and Wilson - had done? The difference was that, even thought he'd gone about it idiotically, House had been so sure of the medical necessity that he had risked his career to try to save the man's life… while she and Wilson had done essentially the same thing to House himself, but in order to force a man who had been abused as a child to attend the funeral of his abuser. They had lucked out, but only because House had forgiven them and never pressed charges.

Nemesis continued her question. "Did you often second-guess Dr. House's motives, Dr. Cuddy?"

"I suppose I did it more than I'd realized," she answered quietly, struggling to get words out. She grabbed the water bottle and sipped at it, swishing the water around in her mouth before swallowing, hoping it would rid her of the horrible dry mouth that was making it so hard to talk. Her tongue felt like lead.

"If you had to hazard a guess, how often were you accurate about what motivated him, as opposed to how often he was correct in his assessment of your motives?"

Her eyelids drifted shut again, as House's "job review" of her swam into view. She'd read it and reread his words dozens of times - had practically memorized it - in the days after he'd read it aloud to her. "You act like employees should fear and respect you, but your eyes tell us... actually your eyes tell us nothing because we're looking at your boobs," he'd begun. "…which tell us that you're desperate to have someone jump on you and tell you they love you one grunted syllable at a time. What you want, you run away from. What you need, you don't have a clue. What you've accomplished makes you proud, but you're still miserable. Please sign."

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, he'd been right on every point. She _had_ dressed provocatively… for him… and had desperately wanted someone – no, not anyone… House - to tell her he loved her. Even on their first morning together as a couple, during that Scrabble game, she'd refused to let go of the fact that she'd told him she loved him, but hadn't yet heard it back from him. Only hours into their relationship, following that horrendous day at the crash site, she was already trying to control his behavior, change him into that lover she wanted him to be.

Her own words from later that day came back to her: "I don't want you to change," she'd said. But, if she was being honest with herself, and this damned panel was forcing her into a more truthful self-examination than she'd ever undergone before, she had wanted him to change, and she'd started trying to change him almost from the moment they got together.

For years, she'd run away from getting into a truly adult relationship, blaming her inability to find love on the faults of her partners, and yes, he was right - she had no idea what she might really have needed. She _still_ had no idea what she needed. Yes, she had been miserable - to be fair, she was still miserable - but very proud of her professional accomplishments… _Be candid here, Lisa_, she thought. _Wasn't the main reason I was so mortified when he crashed into my house was because the destruction of my home and our relationship had wound up on the national news? Not because House had lost control of himself, or because I might have fallen out of love with him, but because it reflected so badly on my professionalism and the choices I'd made._

The worst of it was that, right this minute, after all these revelations, she couldn't remember a single time when she'd been right about him. She was sure she must have been, but her mind was a blank.

"I don't honestly know," she admitted.

"Break," said the chairman. "We'll meet back here at 3 p.m."


	36. Day 9, 3 pm Dr Lisa Cuddy 5

**Day Nine, 3 p.m.**

Once again, Cuddy spent part of the break in the ladies' room, adjusting her makeup. Only this time, her stomach growled unattractively, and she was starting to wish she'd eaten some lunch. By the time she went back into the room, which seemed even more stifling now, she just wanted to get home, eat something, see Rachel and go to bed.

It started innocently enough. "Tell us in your own words, what happened the day of the Trenton crane collapse."

Putting on her best professional demeanor, Cuddy answered, "I heard about the accident at about 10:30 a.m., and immediately went into crisis mode, assigning hospital resources to the task."

"This would have been the same morning Mr. Douglas proposed to you?"

"Yes."

"And you had accepted his proposal?"

"Yes, I had."

"And this was also the morning Dr. House presented you with the rare copy of your grandfather's book, is that right?"

"Yes. My _great_-grandfather's book."

"Sorry… your _great_-grandfather's book. How did Dr. House come to be at the accident site? Did you order him to be there?"

"To be honest, I can't recall. He might just have shown up. He was doing triage." _Which, it turned out, he was extraordinarily good at._

"But weren't plenty of doctors back in the safety of PPTH, working in the ER?"

"Yes, I guess there were. I know Dr. Foreman was at the site for awhile, but then the crane operator - House found something wrong with him, something that might have contributed to the accident, and Dr. Foreman went back with him to PPTH." She was starting to feel worn down by the constant barrage of challenges to her decisions concerning House. She was ready for the day to be over, for the questioning to be over. She was ready for that moment when she never had to think about Gregory House again. "House was going to leave with the patient, but I told him we needed him at the site."

"To continue doing triage?" asked the chairman.

"To do whatever was necessary," she replied.

It wasn't too early in the session for her nemesis to speak up. Cuddy caught herself just about to roll her eyes. Pasting a neutral expression on her face, she looked at her inquisitor. "So Dr. Foreman returned to the hospital, but you expected Dr. House to stay?"

"Yes." _Nothing unreasonable there_, she thought.

The next question confused her. "Should someone like Dr. House have been expected to treat patients in such a treacherous locale?"

Cuddy got her back up. "House was a doctor, it was an emergency, and, yes, he _should _have been there."

"I think you misunderstand me, Dr. Cuddy. Let me be very clear. Why was a disabled employee there in the first place? Wouldn't his skills have been better used back at the hospital, where his disability might not have been at risk? And if he'd found a potential Diagnostics patient, wouldn't it have made sense for him to return to the hospital, and leave the more able-bodied Dr. Foreman at the site?"

"Well, I don't know that I agree with that thought. He was our best triage person."

The panel chair interrupted. "Is it not also true that you began your relationship with Dr. House that same night, immediately after he had lost a patient to whom he had become quite emotionally attached?"

Cuddy sighed. "Yes."

"Describe for us your interactions with Dr. House on the day of the Trenton accident."

"I was just trying to get him to do his job," she said through gritted teeth.

"Apparently, some of the people on site overheard you yelling at Dr. House about personal matters. Would you care to explain?"

No, she really would _not_ care to explain. She sighed, feeling a stress headache blooming behind her eyes. "I already told you. I thought he was messing with me about the book, that he was using that book as a way to screw with my engagement."

"Which still makes very little sense, Dr. Cuddy. And why would that justify your demeaning one of your doctors in public, during an emergency, at the site of an accident?"

"It was stressful, and sometimes House could be really annoying. I lost my temper, okay?!" As she had just lost it with the panel.

In a quiet, calm, soothing tone of voice, the panel chairman said, "Dr. Cuddy, we are here to get at the underlying truth of what went on between you two, and it appears that Dr. House may not have been the only one with boundary issues. Now, could you please explain what Dr. House might have done to precipitate your reaction to him?"

She huffed out an angry breath. "He'd discovered there was a woman trapped underneath the rubble. She was in an underground parking garage, I think, and he had crawled in there to try to rescue her."

"With his disability? He chose to do that over the safer avenue of triage? That sounds fairly heroic so far."

"Trust me. It wasn't. Her leg was trapped in the wreckage, and, clearly thinking of his desire to preserve his own leg years earlier, he had foolishly promised her that she could keep her leg, that it wouldn't have to be amputated."

"So he was trying to respect her wishes?"

"I suppose so. I wasn't there for most of it."

"And yet, you seem to have a very strong opinion about it. Go on."

"Well, there was a secondary collapse, and…"

"Excuse me a moment for interrupting, Dr. Cuddy. Just for clarification, did she suffer any additional injuries in that collapse?"

"Not that I know of, but it kept the EMT workers from being able to retrieve her as soon as they might have."

"Were the EMT workers caught in that secondary collapse?"

"No, I don't think so. Maybe one of them. Dr. House was in there, though."

"He was? Was he injured?"

"Yes, he was. But not too seriously. He cut his head and needed some stitches in his shoulder." Cuddy saw panel members making notes.

"Continue."

"By the time the debris was cleared away after the second collapse, so much time had passed that I felt it was necessary to amputate the woman's leg… but House disagreed with me. He claimed that he had promised her she could keep her leg, and that of all people, he knew what a leg was worth. I was sure he was reacting to her situation based on his own history, and because he was upset about my engagement… I called him on it." _At which point he'd accused her of being self-absorbed narcissist._

"In what way did you call him on it?"

"I accused him of refusing to do what was necessary for his patient because he couldn't separate her legitimate medical needs from his own betrayal by Stacy." _And you_, she thought, almost randomly. _His betrayal by you._

"This doesn't sound very pleasant, Dr. Cuddy. But at least some of what you said appears to have been a professional disagreement… with decidedly personal overtones."

Cuddy was on a roll. "Yes. I guess so. Anyway, at some point - I can't even remember if it was the same conversation or if this took place at some other point in the day, he made me so angry that I yelled at him. I'm not sure of everything I said, but I think I told him that I had moved on with Lucas, and Wilson had moved on with his ex-wife, and House was alone and always would be, because he deserved to be." Not the nicest thing she had ever said to someone.

Echoing her thoughts, Ms. Nemesis said, "That wasn't very charitable of you, was it, Dr. Cuddy?"

"I don't know," she replied. "He could be pretty nasty himself sometimes. Then I told him I was sick of making excuses for him, sick of everyone having to tiptoe around him, making their own lives worse while they tried to keep him from collapsing. I told him I was done." When she'd said it, as she remembered the moment, she'd been dead serious. She was done with him. Forever. As opposed to now, when she really was done. How many times had she said those exact words to House over the years? And how many times had it been over something simple, like when she told him she was done with him because he - the lifelong bachelor - had left the toilet seat up, used her toothbrush and not taken out the garbage?

"Let me get this straight. You said this to your disabled employee who was trying to climb through rubble to save the life and limb of a terrified woman caught in a building collapse? An employee who had spent the better part of the previous year attempting to improve his life after having spent months in a mental institution, but whose efforts at doing so had apparently gone unnoticed - and apparently unsupported - by either you or Dr. Wilson?"

Cuddy shut her eyes, remembering the stricken look on House's face as she screamed at him. She had decimated him in that one instant, and right then, she just hadn't cared. _And I'm blaming him for losing his temper for one moment_? she suddenly thought, with a perspective on her own behavior that she had never allowed herself to see before. She didn't like what she saw.

_I'm hating his guts because he snapped?_ she thought._ Was what he did to me any worse than what I did to him that day? The only difference is that I intentionally… systematically… destroyed him emotionally, but when he lost it, he destroyed my property. How the hell could he forgive me… ever… not to mention being willing to get involved with me that very same night? If he could forgive me, shouldn't I be able to find it in my heart to forgive him?_ And yet, she couldn't. She just couldn't.

"What happened next, Dr. Cuddy?"

"I climbed down to where the woman was trapped, and then he came down to convince her to allow the amputation. She pleaded with him not to do it. I think she reminded him that he had promised she could keep her leg, but he said that too much time had passed. She was very upset, understandably."

"Of course. You said he convinced her to allow the amputation?"

"Yes. I'm not sure I remember his exact words, but I seem to recall him saying that he wished he hadn't insisted on saving his own leg. If I remember rightly, I think he said something like, 'They cut out a chunk of muscle about the size of my fist and they left me with this mutilated, useless thing. I'm in pain every day. It changed me. It made me a harder person… a worse person. And now... now I'm alone. You don't want to be like me.'" _Of course, it was actually her, Lisa Cuddy, who arranged to cut out that chunk of muscle the size of his fist, it was her who left him in pain every day… and it was her who had just made damned sure he knew he was alone and always would be._

"So her leg was amputated?"

"Yes. House insisted on doing it himself."

"That must have been rough on him."

"I guess it was. I had left the scene, but I could hear her screaming from up above. Then House rode with her and husband in the ambulance."

"So how did you go from saying such hateful things to starting a relationship in the same night?"

Cuddy thought back, trying to remember how her feelings could do a 180-degree turnaround in such a short time. "I'm not actually positive," she admitted. "All I know is that when he talked her into the amputation, I saw a side of him I had forgotten existed, and suddenly I knew I loved him. After I went home and broke things off with Lucas, I drove to House's apartment. His front door was wide open, and I found him sitting on the floor of his bathroom. There was glass from his mirror all around him, and he was holding a bottle of Vicodin in his hand. I guess he'd hidden some behind the mirror."

"Do you think his desire to take painkillers again was from the pain of crawling around the accident site… or from the emotional pain of your words, followed by having to amputate that woman's leg?"

Cuddy grew quiet as she remembered the emotional intensity of that day. "I… I'm really not sure. I found out later that the woman died on the way to the hospital. He was just… shattered. Shattered as badly as that mirror on his bathroom floor."

"And would you say that you understood why he wanted to take Vicodin right then?"

"I guess I did. I left the decision up to him. I remember when I told him I loved him, he asked me if he was hallucinating again. I…I think he thought he was having another delusion about me… and I guess I can't blame him for thinking that. He seemed so lost. I made him look at the Vicodin in his hand, at which point he realized he hadn't actually taken it… and so he couldn't be hallucinating."

"Your relationship began that night?"

"Yes, it did. It seems to me he said something about being the most screwed up person in the world, and I said that he would always be the most incredible person I had ever known, and that I didn't want him to change."

"I'm sure it was a very emotionally intense day for both of you, Dr. Cuddy, but didn't it ever occur to you, either then or later, that it might not be appropriate… not to put too fine a point on it… for you to seduce an employee, especially one who was so vulnerable at that particular moment?"

"All I knew was that I loved him and wanted to be with him."

"I'm sure you believed it at the time, but there does seem to be a pattern emerging here. You suddenly broke off your engagement to Mr. Douglas that night, and just as suddenly, a few months later, you no longer wanted to be with Dr. House."

"I… uh… yes, that's correct." And then there was her early marriage that lasted less than a week. Maybe her mother was right… maybe she expected too much. And maybe she did have a pattern of suddenly abandoning relationships with no warning. She'd never talked to Lucas again after that night, but after seeing what happened to House after she broke up with him, she now wondered how Lucas had fared in the wake of their broken engagement. Shaking off the unwelcome thought, she refocused her attention on the panel.

"On the night of the crane collapse, you had no problem allowing Dr. House to make his own decision whether or not to take a Vicodin, but on the day you broke up with him, you blamed the dissolution of your relationship on the fact that he'd actually taken one."

"Yes, but that was different."

"How, Dr. Cuddy? How was it different? The only part of this equation that seems to have changed was you and your expectations of him… and your rather mercurial emotions. In the one instance, you gave him free will, and in the other, you punished him for giving in to exactly the same temptation you'd been so understanding of months before."

For the first time in years, Cuddy found herself close to tears. Maybe House wasn't the most screwed up person in the world. Maybe she was.

"I d-don't know what to say," was all she could come up with.

"It's been a very long day, so I think that's enough for now. Let's reconvene tomorrow morning at 9 a.m."


	37. Day 10, 9 am Dr Lisa Cuddy 6

**Day Ten, 9 a.m. - Friday**

Cuddy pulled herself together overnight, focusing again on how she had felt when House drove through her dining room, the sheer terror of wondering if he was going to kill her or her guests. Thank goodness that Rachel wasn't home to witness the destruction. By the time she settled herself into the hard chair before the panel, she found her rage against House returning. No, she decided, her blaze of anger at the crash site wasn't anything like the moment when he lost control and drove his car into her home.

"Let's pick up where we left off," said the panel chair, looking through his notes.

_No, let's not_, thought Cuddy irritably.

"Tell us what happened when the two of you returned to work."

She took a breath and launched into the details. "Well, the first thing I wanted to do was to report our relationship status change to the HR department and sign love contracts. That turned out to be a little more complicated than I'd hoped." _You ever see Wild Kingdom?_ House had said, being as annoying as he possibly could._ Those insects that rip their partner's heads off after copulating?_ And yet, he wasn't that far off, was he? After their breakup, they had pretty much ripped each other's heads off. She'd done it by breaking up with him so abruptly, stripping him of her presence in his life with no warning. He'd done it by finally… _finally…_ losing his temper while behind the wheel of a car.

If there was one thing in her past she wished she could change, it would be getting involved with Gregory House in the first place. It was a bad idea, which, of course, House had figured out almost immediately, and there was no way a relationship between them was going to do anything but cause both of them excruciating emotional pain. What had she been thinking? Well, to be truthful, she hadn't been thinking. She'd turned off her brain and blindly followed her emotions.

"In what way was it more complicated?"

"Well, the HR people felt it would be better - and I agreed - that I shouldn't be supervising House any longer. But they couldn't seem to find anyone to do the job."

"Do you know who they approached to step in for you in the capacity?"

"From what I understand, they tried all the other department heads at the hospital, but no one was willing to take on the job."

"Department heads… in other words, House's equals?"

"Yes."

"Was it possible that someone other than a department head might have been willing to do it?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"I was thinking along the lines of a board member, or perhaps even an administrator from another hospital nearby… someone more objective."

Cuddy shook her head. "To be honest, I hadn't considered that. After HR told me they hadn't been able to find anyone, I really thought I'd be able to handle it myself. After all, I'd been supervising him for years by that point."

"How did it work out having you continue to supervise him?"

Cuddy sighed. "It didn't work out at all well. At first, I sincerely believed I could compartmentalize my life, keeping the professional interactions with House separate from the personal. It was a lot harder than I anticipated, and I don't think I did either of us - or the hospital - any good during that time. My objectivity was compromised."

"Could you give us some examples of how this played out, Dr. Cuddy? We're not trying to put you on the spot… even if it has seemed that way at times. We're just trying to gather information about what led up to the later problems. I realize we haven't mentioned this before, but let me assure you that before we started interviewing witnesses, we thoroughly researched Dr. House - carefully reviewing his case files, personnel files, legal issues, complaints about him from patients and other doctors, medical history, and so on.

"We are well aware of his negative traits, his borderline - and sometimes more than borderline - illegal and unethical manner of treating patients, his personal recklessness and self-destructive – possibly even suicidal – tendencies, as well as his provocative and occasionally downright mean way of dealing with other people. What we're trying to find out is whether there were any mitigating factors outside of his own personal demons that might have contributed to the outcome, and whether there might be some more positive traits that have gone overlooked by the some of the people around him."

At this, Cuddy felt somewhat relieved. She'd gotten so defensive the day before, because she felt that all the panel wanted to do was nail her for her own faults. Some of which, she had to admit to herself after yesterday's forced self-reflection, she deserved, and many of which were not only unpleasant, but occasionally even unethical or illegal in themselves. It was so easy to judge House's shortcomings, because he hung them out in plain sight, but it was a lot harder to see her own, because she'd spent so many years refusing to acknowledge them. Despite the panel chairman's reassurance, she had a sinking suspicion she was going to have to face the music on some of her past behavior.

"I'm not even sure where to start," she admitted, thinking back on that meeting with HR and trying to reconstruct the conversation. _"I believe that I can still supervise Dr. House effectively, but we both want to follow hospital policy to the letter,"_ she'd said, barely recognizing the irony in promising that House would follow hospital policy. The HR guy had expressed concern about conflict of interest, about favoritism toward House or bias against him in connection with her supervision of House. Of course, she ultimately had a terrible conflict of interest. She wasn't sure if she'd shown favoritism, but her personal feelings had definitely gotten involved, and she was pretty sure she had shown bias against him at times because of issues they were having personally.

Where the hell was HR when all that was going on? Maybe she should have gone back to them when she started having trouble separating the personal from the professional, but it had always been so hard for her to admit her own failings. She didn't remember ever even considering asking for help, other than the one time when they told her they couldn't find anyone else to supervise him.

"Let me rephrase that. Tell us, in your own words, about how your private relationship with House affected how the two of you worked together, since you were still his supervisor."

"I'm not sure I was aware of any difference at the beginning," said Cuddy, although that small, unsettled part of her knew it wasn't true. The problems started almost immediately.

"According to several witnesses, you pressured him to change the way he worked, using your personal relationship as collateral. Was that true?"

"I… I… Yes," she stuttered. "I hate having to admit this, but I did change the way I dealt with him, and I'm pretty sure… no, I _know_… I added our personal issues into the equation."

"Several of our other witnesses observed it and were concerned about the effect of your relationship on Dr. House's professionalism."

Cuddy was startled. A little embarrassed, she hadn't realized how apparent it had been that she and House were having those kinds of difficulties. At the same time, the panel chairman had hit one of her buttons, and she responded emotionally, again feeling defensive.

"What professionalism?" she suddenly snapped. "He was the least _professional_ person I ever knew."

"That may be, depending on your definition of professional, but he was also one of the most effective at what he did. And his _effectiveness_ decreased considerably while you two were together, according to the statistics we have in front of us."

_Was that true_? thought Cuddy, flushing with embarrassment. _Did our relationship actually, statistically, make him a worse doctor?_ All she remembered right at the moment was the lying about patient care incident, the not showing up for her award, and, of course that damned Vicodin when she needed him most.

"I'm not sure I ever saw those statistics," she said, trying to justify herself.

"Nevertheless… please, if you can, tell us how your personal relationship affected your professional one."

She suddenly remembered an early conversation. "Fairly early on, he deferred to me on something when he didn't agree… something he never would have done previously. At times, I was deferring to him and at other times, he was deferring to me. We were both second-guessing each other. It was a mess. He admitted that this was screwing him up on the job, and I said it was screwing me up, too. That was when I tried to get HR to find someone else to supervise him, but they told me none of the department heads would take him on."

"So, in a way, the two of you found yourselves trapped?"

"Yes. We could either try really hard to make it work, or we'd have to break up… or maybe one of us would have to leave our job. I was still in the honeymoon phase of our relationship, so I didn't see it very clearly at the time, but it was a nightmare. We finally decided that if we were painfully, brutally honest with each other, maybe we could function." _And that certainly worked out well, didn't it?_

"The sense we had from other witnesses was that at least some of what happened was that more than once you, Dr. Cuddy, brought personal issues into the workplace, even on occasion trying to manipulate House into behaving differently, using your sex life as a threat. Would that be accurate?"

_Was it true?_ Cuddy searched her memory and came up with one bad moment that had certainly been discussed at work, and perhaps other people had overheard it. It was when he wanted to keep using that hooker for his massages, and she'd put her foot down, telling him she wouldn't see him until he stopped seeing the hooker.

_I've tried 15 different massage therapists over the last few years_, he'd told her_. I don't know why, but she's the best I've found. She makes my leg feel better._ But what was best for his leg got overruled by what became a make-or-break moment for her, and she had insisted he see someone else for his massages, even if that person didn't help his pain as much. She didn't think she'd been unreasonable in expecting him to stop getting his massages from someone he'd had sex with, but she _had _brought the issue into work, and she _had_ blackmailed him with sex to get him to do what she wanted._  
_

"I guess I'd have to say yes. It's not a pleasant thing to admit, but yes. I did tell him on at least one occasion that there would be no sex if he didn't do what I wanted. The incident I'm thinking of was personal, but it was discussed at work."

The next case was Alice Tanner, when he'd tricked her into breaking into the patient's home. Cuddy knew she was in enough hot water as it was, so she decided to pass on mentioning that…even though she'd again given him the silent treatment after their adventure at the patient's house. From what the chairman said, they already knew how House operated, so nothing she said about it would either surprise them or add to their knowledge. She hoped.

She did remember a conversation with him around that time. "I'm not going to dump you because we like different food or books or music," she'd said. "On the other hand, I might dump you if you don't talk to me when you have a problem with our relationship." How had he taken that? As encouragement to openly discuss things with her? Or as a warning? Even thought her intentions were good, was he insecure enough in the relationship - or certain enough that it was destined to fail, no matter what - that he interpreted her comments as an implied threat? That she didn't love him unconditionally? That if he didn't do what she wanted, she would end it? _Which_, said that little voice, _is exactly what she did._

What had she said next? "You make me better," she'd told him. Was that actually… statistically… true? Given the insight she now had into how their relationship had affected them at work, perhaps she was being optimistic. "Hopefully, I make you better," she'd added. Well, it was pretty clear in hindsight that she'd been wrong on that one.

"What happened next?"

"He solved his next case."

"This would have been the writer, Alice Tanner?"

"Yes." She remembered standing in the doorway to Alice Tanner's room, hearing House convince the suicidal writer that she had been a good mother when he knew perfectly well she'd caused the death of her beloved son. Cuddy had the feeling he'd said it partly for her benefit, not just for the patient. For once, she'd caught him being nice. It was kind of a shock in a way, seeing him like that. But that hidden niceness was the part of him she loved. He'd lied to Alice Tanner, but somehow that lie didn't bother her the way the other one did.

Damned go-carts, she thought. Why couldn't he have taken her someplace she would have liked? Just because she liked go-carts at age 12 didn't meant she was going to like them now… and she didn't. As she remembered her annoyance with that whole evening, a new thought occurred to her. He _had_ gone to the trouble of asking her mother - her obnoxious mother - what she liked, obviously because he hadn't trusted himself to make the right choice. So whose fault was it the double date had been a disaster? House's or her mother's? He'd at least tried. Or maybe it was her own fault. She hadn't given him anything to go on - had told him that he knew what she liked… which he clearly didn't… so he'd done his best to try to figure it out in the absence of data.

"How else did your personal life affect your professional interactions?"

Since it was already on her mind… _the lie_.

Cuddy huffed in frustration. "He lied to me. About what he had done to get the answer to a patient's problem."

"Had he lied to you previously about job-related things?"

"Yes, he had." _But she hadn't taken it personally then._

"But because you were now a couple, his lie in this instance changed how you dealt with it?"

"Yes."

"How did your changed reaction affect your working relationship?"

Huffing out a frustrated breath, Cuddy admitted, "I got angry about it, insisted that he apologize, but he refused. I think he said, 'I can't apologize if I haven't done anything wrong.' I pointed out that he had lied to my face, and he was adamant that he'd done it in order to save a patient's life. I remember the conversation pretty clearly, because I was so angry with him. He told me that this was business, but that he wouldn't lie to me about something personal."

"What happened then?"

"I think it told him I couldn't compartmentalize like that. That's the moment I should have gone back to HR, because clearly I was messing things up. I stayed mad at him for quite a long time, and refused to have sex with him or even talk to him about it until apologized. Eventually, a long while later, he relented and apologized."

"How long did this stalemate last?"

"It was at least two weeks."

"During which time you, what, spoke with him only when necessary?"

"Yes."

"So would you say that, at this point, not only was your professional objectivity as his supervisor compromised, but that it affected your ongoing interactions at work?"

"Yes."

"Did Dr. House continue to take cases during the time when you weren't speaking to him?"

"Yes."

The panel chairman rifled through the mass of papers in front of him, finally pulling one out and perusing it a moment before speaking. "I see here that he treated a couple of people with suspected cases of smallpox and that the CDC was called in. The date suggests this was fairly early in your relationship. Would that have been during the time when you remained angry with him over the lie?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"Tell us what happened in that circumstance?"

"House had a father and daughter who appeared to have smallpox. The CDC arrived, and House, in an insane move to prove he it wasn't smallpox, walked into the isolation room without a hazmat suit on."

"Insanely reckless or bravely sure of himself?"

"I have no idea," said Cuddy honestly. "Sometimes I just couldn't tell the difference."

"Presumably, he turned out to be right."

"Yes, of course he was… or maybe it was his team," she said, rolling her eyes. "Either way, it got solved on his watch." But before that happened, when the father died, she saw a House she'd never seen before - one who was flat-out terrified, convinced he'd been wrong about the smallpox and positive that he was going to pay for that mistake with his life.

"Why do you think he felt the need to do something so drastic to prove himself right?"

"Again, I have no idea. The CDC had been pretty hardnosed about following the rules, ignoring House's team's efforts to find an alternate cause for the symptoms. House never respected authority, so it may just have gotten his back up."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Dr. House a recognized authority on infectious diseases? Why wouldn't the CDC have worked closely with him in the situation?"

A little surprised, Cuddy raised her eyebrows. "You know, I never really thought about that. Maybe we just happened to get one arrogant, dogmatic CDC rep."

"How involved were you in what was going on?"

"I shut down the hospital, in case the infection had spread. But I didn't get directly involved until after Dr. House entered the isolation ward."

"May I ask why not?"

"I didn't think there was anything constructive I could do."

"But were you aware that the representative from the CDC was butting heads with Dr. House?"

"Yes, of course I was. Anytime House butted heads with someone, it seemed as if I heard about it within minutes."

"Is it possible you could have intervened a little sooner? Perhaps tried to mediate things before they got out of hand? Again, Dr. House was an expert on infectious disease, so maybe someone needed to point that out to the man from the CDC."

_Oh, crap_, thought Cuddy. She'd been so busy being mad at House about the lying, she hadn't even thought about talking to the CDC guy about House's credentials. And House would never bring it up; it just wasn't his style to toot his own horn that way.

She felt those tears threatening again. "Yes. I probably should have. And yes, before you ask, it may have been because of our personal argument that I didn't think of it."

_This is what happens when you have no respect for authority, no respect for anything_, she'd said to him. What had he said back? Oh, yes. _You don't think it's a little much to use the threat of death to win a totally separate argument with your boyfriend?_ Then she'd asked if he thought the two were related. _Does seem to track suspiciously closely_, he'd replied.

"I see from the file - and since we never heard anything in the news about a smallpox outbreak - that he solved the case."

"Yes. It was rickettsialpox, also known as r-pox."

"Curable?"

"Yes."

"I see that the father died before the diagnosis was made." House's horrified… frightened… face swam before Cuddy's eyes.

"Yes, unfortunately."

"If you could go back, is there anything you might have done differently?"

Pushing aside the memories of how scared she was for House's safety and how annoyed she was with him for putting himself in that position, she thought back through the sequence of events. _Was there anything she could have done? _"I suppose if I had intervened with the CDC when the conflict between their representative and House first started, he might have been able to make the diagnosis sooner and could have saved the father as well as the daughter… not to mention the fact that he might not have barged into the isolation room unprotected. But that's just conjecture."

Had she kept her distance more than usual because she was still so angry with him over the lie? Thinking it over, she was reasonably sure that she had. _You have made me a worse doctor_ rang in her head. Here was another dead patient who might have been collateral damage in their relationship… because of her inability to clear her head enough to behave objectively… professionally… and his stubbornness about apologizing for something he didn't believe he'd done wrong. Prior to their getting together, she'd always kind of admired his insistence on following his own ethical standards - except, of course, during the whole Tritter thing. She'd admired that trait in him even when he created such problems with Vogler.

But somehow, in this situation, with the fact of their sexual relationship scrambling everything in her head, all she'd wanted was for him to apologize, for him to make the concession, for him to… surrender? She'd had to have her own way, hadn't she? Unwilling to compromise or even talk to him about it, she'd gone against their previous professional history and tried to control behavior in him that she had once admired under other circumstances… and which she knew without a shadow of a doubt was not controllable.

Her mind drifted back to the r-pox patient. How many patients had he lost during the few months they were together? Had she, in reality, made him a worse doctor? _He had free will_, she thought, rebelliously. He could have stood up for his patients more. He could have confronted her as he always had previously.

But he admitted that their relationship was screwing him up, too. Could he have been leery of her, trying on his own to figure out how turn this awkward situation back into a loving one? While she was still angry about the lie, she hadn't made it easy for him to talk to her at all, even about work issues. Unless… Was it possible that, even this early he'd come to the conclusion that loving her, trying to make the relationship work, overrode everything else, even his patients, even his natural tendencies and desires… even his own free will? _I will always choose you._ Her throat tightened as she tried to put the puzzle pieces together. She was shaken from her troubled reverie by the next question.

"Fair enough, Dr. Cuddy. During this time when you were angry with him over the lie, did anything else of a personal nature come up at work?"

Cuddy closed her eyes, remembering again their argument about the hooker slash masseuse. Not sure if anyone else might have testified before the panel about it, she decided to be forthcoming. Opening her eyes and sighing, she said, "Yes."

"What would that have been?"

"For quite some time before we got together, House had been seeing someone for leg massages. She was a hooker, and apparently they'd had sex prior to our getting together. I insisted that he stop seeing her and go to a licensed massage therapist that I recommended instead."

"You were uncomfortable with the fact that he'd had sex with this woman?"

"Yes, of course, I was."

"After the two of you became a couple, do you know if he continued to have sex with her?"

"He said no."

"But it still bothered you enough to put your foot down about it?"

"Yes, it really did. I told him I wouldn't see him until he stopped seeing her."

"How did he react to your ultimatum?"

"He wasn't happy about it. He told me that he'd tried 15 different massage therapists over the years, but she was the best. In fact, he hired a male hooker and sent him to my office to give me a massage, just to point out that it didn't bother him, so why should it bother me."

"What ultimately happened?"

"He stopped seeing her." She got her way.

"Even though he told you that she was the best person he'd found in 15 years? Would you say that, because of your uneasiness with her profession, perhaps you were thinking more of yourself than what might actually be best for him?"

_Whoa!_ Suddenly, snatches of conversations with House whooshed through her head. She'd had to have her way on the lie, on the masseuse, on how she expected him to behave at work, on what she expected of him in her home… _her_ home - she hadn't so much shared it with him as she'd _allowed _him to visit occasionally… basically, she'd had to have her way on an awful lot of what happened between them.

Another uncomfortable thought occurred to her, something she hadn't paid attention to in the moment: House - the incorrigible, selfish, authority-hating House - had given in to her more often than not. He had really, really tried to give her what she wanted… and she had barely noticed. Just like she'd never thanked him for his thoughtful, romantic gifts. Whatever happened to positive reinforcement? In theory, she knew better. If she wanted to shift House's behavior, she should have encouraged him. But in reality, she had just gotten annoyed with him, and used sex as a weapon, and given him the silent treatment until she got what she wanted.

"Did anything constructive come out the conversation?"

Shaken by her newfound insight, she stuttered, "W-we… ummm… did wind up having a long talk about commitment. I accused him of trying to sabotage the relationship because he was afraid of getting too serious. He… well, he accused me of pretty much the same thing. He pointed out - and in retrospect, he was right - that I had not let him sleep over and hadn't even introduced him to my daughter… that I was keeping him out of her life. I felt I was protecting her, in case we broke up. But I think maybe I was hedging my bets, keeping him at arm's length and not letting things get too serious for my own reasons." _Call it what it is. I'm not the only one who's holding back_, he'd said.

Had she ever compromised with him, either professionally or personally, while they were together? At the moment, she couldn't think of a single time. But now, she was able to see that he compromised throughout their relationship. House, who never compromised, had given in to her more often that not. And yet, she'd accused him of being a selfish bastard, of only thinking of himself, of never putting her before his own desires. Pot, meet kettle.

Suddenly, Cuddy - the always confident, always sure of herself Cuddy - didn't feel very good about herself.

"Did anything else happen between the two of you before he apologized?"

"_I lied to save my patient's life. I didn't lie to you. I lied to my boss. Either of those arguments working yet? I guess that means I don't have to go to the wedding on Saturday."_

"He… I… well, I insisted that he go with me to the wedding of hospital's chairman of the board."

"Even though you were still angry with him and not really speaking to him?"

"Yes. I had no intention of going alone. I felt it was important for him to make the effort to escort me to the wedding." Again, she had insisted that House capitulate.

"How did he react to this… suggestion?"

Cuddy grimaced. "Well… ummm… not very well. He loathed weddings and what he called their 'seven levels of hypocrisy.' Plus, he pointed out that I was still angry with him about the lie, but he did agree to go. _"So as long as you don't take it as an admission of guilt, sure, count me in."_ _  
_**  
**"What happened next?"

Cuddy closed her eyes and sighed. "I also told him he had to attend the rehearsal dinner."

"And he agreed?"

"Yes, although he wound up having a patient who needed him, so he didn't get to the rehearsal dinner after all. He did mess with me a bit first… he kept trying to get me to lie, I guess in the hope that if I lied about something I'd forgive his lie."

"Not the most conventional approach to conflict resolution…"

"No, it wasn't. And it didn't work. I made it clear that only an apology would do… and eventually, he apologized." _Even though he had caught her in a lie, she still stuck by her guns. Where was the compromise in that?_

"Once he apologized and the two of you were talking again, what happened between you after that?"

"Things were good," said Cuddy.

"Were they good for both of you, or just for you?"

Cuddy searched her memory for clues… and came up empty. She shrugged her shoulders in response. "I'm not sure," she admitted.

"What happened when your mother became ill?"

Cuddy decided to cut this short, if possible. "I turned the case over to Dr. House, who ultimately diagnosed her. There had been a problem with an artificial hip that had gone bad."

"But before he diagnosed her, didn't she fire him from her case?"

"Well, yes."

"And what did you do then?"

"I knew he was the best, and I wanted the best for my mother, so I asked him to continue working on her case behind the scenes, despite her wishes."

"Was he comfortable with that subterfuge?"

"Not particularly." That was putting it mildly.

"So you leveraged your personal relationship with him to, in essence, make him work on your own mother's case against his better judgment?"

"I guess you could put it that way." _"Actually, my mistakes started a little after that,"_ said House's voice in her head, _"when I agreed to your brilliant scheme to keep me on the case after she'd fired me off it."_

"Were you aware that this might be perceived as an abuse of your position at the hospital? An ethical breach… one that could have cost both you and Dr. House your licenses?"

Again, the questions were forcing her to look at her own behavior, and she wasn't comfortable with it. "I felt it was more important to save my mother's life than to worry about such things."

"Just as you'd felt it was more important at the time of Dr. House's leg injury to go behind his back to collude with Ms. Lockhart to perform the debridement procedure?"

_Ick. They had her there._ "I guess."

"It sounds as if you have a history of ignoring patient wishes to suit your own purposes, Dr. Cuddy."

She hated these people. She hated being forced to revisit every stupid mistake she'd ever made. Pursing her lips, she said, "If you say so. But House did it all the time, and I did it to save my mother's life."

"But the way you manipulated him into doing so left you open to the threat of a lawsuit from your mother some months later, didn't it?"

"I wouldn't say that," argued Cuddy, contrary to what that little voice told her. House's voice emerged from her subconscious. _"You don't want me involved. You don't want you involved. All that ethics stuff that I don't give a crap about suddenly makes sense. If you're emotionally invested, you cannot make rational decisions. You know this would be a disaster."_

"What would you say about it?"

"My mother, in her own warped way, was just trying to bring House and me back together after we'd broken up."

"But if you hadn't opened that particular door for her, the hospital wouldn't have been vulnerable to her lawsuit, would it?"

"Probably not. But my mother would have found some equally obnoxious way to go about what she wanted to do."

"But perhaps not one that involved the hospital."

"Who knows with her?"

"As we understand it, the lawsuit, if she had filed it, would have been a credible one. As I said before, this was a situation that could have cost both you and Dr. House your medical licenses."

She slowly let out her breath. "Yes, I'm sorry to say. Yes, it could." House had been furious with her for manipulating him into treating her mother behind her back. Just because he was willing to give her what she wanted in this instance - and she had played the girlfriend card to get him to do it - he could have lost his license. Now that she could see how often he'd been willing to give in to her wishes, she realized that the fault for any consequences might have been at least partly on her own head.

"What ultimately happened with your mother's case?"

Cuddy thought back. The House voice in her head reminded her of how he had insisted she confront her mother… for her mother's sake. _"She leaves, she dies. One day… maybe a week from now, maybe a year from now, you're going to decide that the man sleeping next to you killed your mother. Get me my patient back."_ "Dr. House convinced me to step back emotionally and do what was necessary to save my mother's life." It galled her to say the next sentence: "He was right."

"Moving on. During the course of your relationship, other than the situation with the lie, did you ever attempt to change Dr. House's work behavior by threatening to withhold sexual favors?"

"I… I might have." _Might have?_ _Definitely did. How many times had she hinted there would be no sex if he didn't do what she wanted at work? She had been unable to separate their personal issues from the professional, and to be honest, she wasn't sure._

"So you brought the bedroom into the boardroom, in a sense?"

"It's hard to separate the two sometimes." Once again, she was beginning to have that cornered feeling that had plagued her yesterday.

"_I assume you're avoiding me because of the charity gala," _she'd said.

"_This Friday? _he'd replied._ "It's completely slipped my mind."_

"_So you'll be there?"_

"_No, I meant it slipped my mind to tell you I'm not going."_

"_What do you think it'll look like if you don't show up when I get an award?"_

"_Like I don't give a crap about awards, charities, what it looks like."_

She heard her own next sentence in her head. _"If you ever want…"_ Although she hadn't completed the threat, she knew it was obvious to both of them that what she meant was, _"If you ever want to sleep with me again, you'll do this for me."_

He hadn't been surprised by her threat, but he did surprise her when he answered, _"I RSVP'd two days ago. What, you think I'm a complete ass?"_

"_If you were already going, why did you…?"_

"_Foreplay."_

Just as she was about to smile at the memory of his punch line, she caught herself and refused to allow her face to reflect it. She was shaken out of her memories by the chairman's next question.

"Tell us about your breakup with Dr. House."

No, no, no. Cuddy was _not_ going to go there. "That's private," she said, crossing her arms defensively.

"It's not private when many of your own actions caused your personal relationship to intersect with your professional life. Please answer the question."

Sighing, Cuddy took a moment to figure out how to explain this so she came out looking good. "I had a cancer scare, and wanted Dr. House to support me. He couldn't do it without first taking a Vicodin to numb his feelings. That was the last straw for me."

"So the two of you had been having problems for awhile?"

"No, not really." _Although, if she was honest with herself… and God, she really didn't want to be… she had somehow thought her love could tame him - she had asked too much of him, and when his best efforts just didn't meet her standards, she had been secretly looking for a way out. Her mother's voice popped into her head: "Then you're an idiot with impossible standards."_

"Didn't you tell us earlier that you had assured him you didn't want him to change?"

"Yes." _Damn them! Did they have to latch onto everything?_

"Is it also true that you broke up with Dr. House - a chronic pain sufferer who had developed pseudo-addiction issues as a results of his extreme pain - because, after a commendable year and a half of sobriety, he took one Vicodin in a moment of emotional distress?"

Cuddy exhaled forcefully through her nose, before reluctantly answering, "Yes."

"Let's take a break and continue this at 11 o'clock."

Feeling as if her emotions and her self-image had been run through a meat grinder, Cuddy stood up, smoothed out her pencil skirt, and left the room.


	38. Day 10, 11 am Dr Lisa Cuddy 77

**Day Ten, 11 a.m. - Friday**

For some reason, all Cuddy could think of during the break was that guy with amnesia, the one who latched on to the alpha personality and mimicked it... and how when the two of them were in the room with him, he'd latched onto House, not her. Could House's actual dominance in their relationship have fueled her desire to control him?

The sense of inferiority she'd always had around her mother, knowing her mother liked Julia better, began to creep up on her. As she strode back into the room, she did what she always did when those insecure feelings threatened. She put on the persona of a warrior knight, trying to make herself as strong and invincible on the outside as she could, so that maybe no one would know what was happening on the inside.

Had she ever let that warrior knight guard down with House, even when they were alone together? she wondered. Even in the middle of sex, she'd had her guard up, protecting that soft inner core, needing to control everything and everyone around her. Where House became a jerk to protect his inner self, she became controlling to protect hers.

Shoulders pulled back, Cuddy walked with purpose toward the panel and reseated herself on the hard chair.

"What happened to Dr. House after you broke off your relationship with him?"

Sighing, she answered. "Not surprisingly, he had a meltdown. Checked himself into a hotel, surrounded himself with hookers, was constantly high on alcohol and Vicodin, jumped off a 10-story balcony into the pool. It was insane." _Insane? There was that word again, coming unbidden out of her mouth._ And once again, that woman on the end of the panel looked up sharply when she said it, frowning as she made a note on the legal pad in front of her.

The panel chairman continued. "So because he took one Vicodin, you broke up with him, and because you broke up with him, he spiraled out of control?"

Defensive again, she asked, "Are you saying this is my fault?"

"No, I'm not saying that. What I _am_ saying is that the abrupt and unexpected breakup with you might have been a factor in his subsequent problems."

"I disagree," she said firmly. "He was responsible for his own behavior. It was exactly that kind of out-of-control part of him that I could no longer tolerate." _There. That was clear enough._

_He'd warned her. That very first day, he'd warned her. He knew how it was going to end before they ever got started and he hadn't wanted to go there. "This isn't going to work," said his voice in her head. She'd tried to argue, and then he'd given her the House version of how things would go between them, one that was incredibly prophetic. Whether or not it was preordained, as he seemed to think, or self-fulfilling prophecy, she wasn't sure. _

"_It's just a statement of fact," he'd said. "It's not a debatable proposition." What had she said then? "Right. Because you can see the future." "No. But I can see the past. And you're going to remember all the horrible things I've done, and you're going to try to convince yourself that I've changed. And I'm going to start doing those horrible things again, because I haven't changed. Then you'll realize that... I'm an insane choice for someone who has a kid. And from there, it's a short step to the inevitable conclusion that all of this... was a mistake. Tell me any of that isn't true."_

_Damn him_. _Damn him for being right. He'd tried to change… tried harder than she'd been willing to acknowledge at the time… but fundamentally, his core personality hadn't changed. The reality was that she _had_ tried to convince herself that he'd changed… that she didn't want him to change. But he hadn't, and she did._

_That first night, she'd wanted him, and because he was so shattered, his usual defenses were down. Yes, he'd wanted to be with her for a long time, but his pessimism - or maybe it was his rational side - had always stopped him before, kept her at arm's length… probably because of what he said that next morning. He _knew_ it wouldn't go well in the long run._

_Shit! She hadn't intended to, and she hadn't realized she was doing it at the time, but she had taken advantage of the situation. How could he possibly say no when she offered herself to him under those circumstances? _

_She was the one who seduced him, and maybe, because he was in such a fragile state, that should give her a heightened responsibility for the outcome. _She _wasn't crushed by the death of a patient, _she _wasn't sitting on the floor contemplating taking a Vicodin after more than a year of sobriety, and _she _wasn't the one who was devastated by unkind things said at the crash site. No, she was ruled by her own emotions and desire, not really taking his situation into account, and she was the one in charge - in control - overruling his apprehensions, grabbing him by the hand and plunging both of them on ahead into certain disaster._

_What would have happened if she'd never gone to House's place that night? She'd been so sure that her love for him was enough. Her feelings. HER feelings. She always seemed to be led by her feelings. It was all about what she wanted... in starting things up with House, in how their relationship progressed, in their breakup, in her refusal to think of how that breakup affected him. It was all about her feelings._

_Despite House's flaws - and God knows there were many - she had loved him… at least she had at the beginning. Now she wasn't sure if she still did. What was making her most uncomfortable here in this room, right now, was that these people were making her look at her own flaws under the same magnifying glass she'd always used to look at his._

"How long did this meltdown last?"

Shaken by her train of thought, it took a minute for her to refocus on the question. "I…I don't know. A couple of weeks, I guess. I really wanted nothing to do with him for awhile, so I wasn't in on all the intrigue."

"Was he still doing his job during this time?"

"After a fashion. From the hotel, with the hookers, high on Vicodin."

"Would you say that he was spiraling out of control?"

"Yes, I guess I would."

"And was his meltdown affecting how he did his job?"

_One of their first conversations after the breakup came to mind. "You didn't expect me to say yes to rupturing his aorta, did you?" she'd said to him. "Since I didn't ask, I wasn't expecting you to say anything at all," he'd replied, his usual abrasive self. As she had before they'd gotten together, she challenged him, but unlike before, there was a new, decidedly unnerving tension in the air. _

"_You have no reason to believe this will save his life," she said. House had laughed at her, his anger and hurt hanging between them. "Really?" he'd asked. "No reason? None at all? I'm just planning on cracking open his chest, blowing up his heart, what… to pad his bill? Or you think that since you broke my heart I want to break his." Of course that's indeed what she'd thought, and right that moment, she'd hated him for seeing through her, even though she also felt pity for him, because she was sure she was right about his motives._

_"I don't know," she said. "I think maybe you're looking for something that can excite you. Fill a void. And it's affecting your judgment."_

_Surprisingly, House agreed with her on this, although he ignored her earlier heart remark. "You're right. I am," he'd said, replying to her comment about him looking for something to excite him, to fill the void. But then, he refuted her last statement, that it had affected his medical judgment. "But my damaged, depressed, drug-addled judgment is still better than yours or any other doctor in this hospital, and my team is going to do this procedure and save his life. So you can either have security arrest me and my team, or you can get the hell out of my way."_

_There was nothing she could say to that, Stunned into silence, she remembered gaping like a fish. "Annnnnd… she caves."_

Was House's meltdown affecting his job? That was the question the chairman had asked what seemed like hours ago. "M-maybe…" she replied, finally, uncertainly.

When she didn't sound totally sure of herself, the chairman responded to her hesitancy. "You don't sound completely convinced, Dr. Cuddy. Why the indecision?"

"I must admit that, on that first case after we broke up, despite the circumstances, he was right… medically right."

_Another moment, a conversation with Foreman, popped into her mind. "He's avoiding you and you're avoiding him and this patient is going to die," he'd said. She'd told Foreman that House was fine... that he was always fine. But was he fine? Clearly he wasn't._

She faltered. "Y-you asked if his meltdown affected his job? I… I don't know. I really don't know."

The chairman nodded thoughtfully. "Thanks for your candor, Dr. Cuddy. Shall we see if we can step back from the more emotional, personal aspects of this for a moment and try to look at things more objectively? You were still his supervisor - and again, as when you first got involved with him sexually, this might have been a good time for you try a little harder to find a way to step down from that capacity. Did you consider contacting Dr. Nolan to try to help Dr. House? Did you attempt to shore up his support system, or provided in-house or outpatient drug and psychological counseling? In short, were you concerned about what was happening to him?"

"Yes… of course I was. But I wasn't responsible for his craziness…" Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Nemesis making more notes. _Shit_. "He… I was done." _There was that phrase again._

_Wilson had confronted her a couple of times about what was happening to House. "He needs you in his life," he'd said. "Even if you're not sleeping with him, he needs you. Without you…" She'd held firm. "You can't go backwards. I can't fix his problem. I _am _his problem."_

"We understand how traumatic your cancer scare must have been for you, and we do sympathize. But you remained his supervisor. Do you feel that you might have been having as much trouble separating the personal from the professional as you say you had when the two of you were together?"

She hadn't thought of it that way. "Well… yes, I guess I might have been."

"Let's look at this strictly from a professional standpoint. You have a valued employee who is going through a particularly difficult time emotionally, and is not reacting well to the situation. As his supervisor, is there anything you would normally do?"

Taking a deep, deep breath and letting it out slowly, Cuddy tried to clear her thoughts, tried to see the situation more objectively, tried to pretend that House and his reactions belonged to someone else… Wilson, perhaps. If Wilson had gone through a bad breakup - and she had seen him through a couple of divorces, so this was not unfamiliar territory - and had reacted unfortunately, but was still reasonably functional on the job, what would she have done?

Remembering how supportive she'd been when Amber was dying, she hoped that she would talk to him, calmly and supportively, and perhaps suggest - or even require - counseling, time off to get himself together. If she'd found out he was also drinking or doing drugs, holed up in a hotel, having a complete meltdown, would that have changed her response? Yes, it probably would have made her more concerned, more determined to intervene and get him the help he so clearly needed.

Part of being a supervisor was trying to support employees who were in crisis, so they could return to full capacity as smoothly and quickly as possible. Could she have done the same for House? _Should_ she have done the same for House? Because she was so close to the situation, and because her guilt and anger were so overpowering, she knew she had been unable to pull back enough to provide House with what he needed… or even to suggest that someone else do it.

She took a deep breath, and told the truth. "I really hate to admit this, but yes. If it had been anyone other than House, under any other circumstances, I probably would have staged an intervention to get him the psychological and medical help he clearly needed."

The chairman made a note before continuing. "I'm sure this is going to sound harsh, and I don't doubt that you were hurting, too, but again, we're just trying to get to the truth of what happened. You set him adrift personally after he had sacrificed his sobriety to try to give you what you needed, and then you also set him adrift professionally. Would that describe what happened?"

Abruptly feeling defensive again, unwilling to admit to more than she already had… even though she knew that she might have screwed up… she blurted out angrily, "I honestly didn't give a crap." _Not true,_ said her little voice. She had given a crap… she just hadn't been willing to do anything about it, because his meltdown had simply confirmed for her that she'd been right to break up with him. "He hadn't been there for me, and I didn't see any reason to be there for him."

After making a couple of notes on his ubiquitous notepad, the chairman paused a moment before adding, "It does concern us that throughout this time, you were unable to separate the personal from the professional."

Cuddy had had it. "Oh, _I _was professional. I was coming in every day, doing my job. _He_ was the one who was out of control."

The chairman chose that moment to change the subject. "Shortly after your breakup, Dr. House got married. Were you aware that he was engaged?"

Still angry, Cuddy replied, "To that whore? Yes, I was aware. He had the gall to bring her into my office and get her attached to his health insurance so she could get a tooth fixed before their fake wedding." Cuddy was still pissed off about that.

"First off, Dr. Cuddy, Mrs. House was both a licensed aesthetician and a pastry chef before her marriage. And second of all, it has been suggested to us that he only married her in the hopes that you still cared enough for him to stop the marriage. In his own way, he seemed to have been trying to get your attention, and perhaps find a way to reconcile with you."

"Well, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction." _A pastry chef? A licensed aesthetician?_

"Dr. House was vulnerable and troubled when you started the relationship with him. What made you think he would be any different when you broke it off with no warning a few months later?"

"I don't know," she huffed. "I guess I always expected so much more from him." _And wasn't that the real problem all along_? thought Cuddy. _I always expected so much more. I always expected House to be someone he wasn't. And then, when he couldn't turn into that person I wanted, I kicked him to the curb._

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds as if you see yourself strictly as the victim in this situation, Dr. Cuddy, with Dr. House as the villain."

In an attempt to regain control, Cuddy pushed aside her newfound perspective on what had happened between her and House, forgetting how much she had hated being considered the victim when the story broke in the press. Now she was simply tired, frustrated, hot and more than a little touchy. "Well, of course I do! The man drove his car through my dining room!"

"Which, of course, is atrocious." The chairman softened his voice, sounding sympathetic to her situation, before asking the next troubling question. "We don't suggest that Dr. House should not be held responsible for that - in point of fact, he _was_ held responsible for it - but do you think it might be possible that some of Dr. House's behavior following your breakup - however unsavory - might have been, at least partly, because he was not receiving psychological and medical support during a trying time?"

Despite the chairman's attempt to ask the question as gently as possible, it pushed Cuddy's buttons, and now she was furious. "That's ludicrous! He was the one who had a major meltdown! He was the one who spent time in a mental institution!"

All of the panel members looked up swiftly at this outburst. There was a pause before the chairman responded. "If that was such an important issue for you, Dr. Cuddy, had it occurred to you before you began a sexual relationship with him to be concerned about entering into a relationship with someone who had been institutionalized and who had possible addiction issues?"

She thought back to how she'd felt the night of the Trenton crash. Trying to calm down, she said, "No... not really. I told you. I suddenly knew I loved him and wanted to be with him."

"Is it possible you were not seeing him very realistically when you showed up at his place and began a relationship with him?"

"He didn't seem any crazier than he ever had been." She really needed to stop saying things like that. Notes were taken on her choice of words, and she saw the panel members conferring for a moment. Cuddy wished she could read lips.

"Had you actually noticed, Dr. Cuddy? You have already admitted to avoiding Dr. House after he was released from Mayfield, and have stated that you had not noticed any particular changes, despite the fact that his own team reported a marked improvement in his behavior and general well-being after he came back to work."

"I was busy. Plus I had a small child at home and was in a stable relationship." _A relationship that I ended as soon as I realized I was in love with House._

"In addition to getting involved with someone who was particularly vulnerable, you were also in a position of authority over him. This sounds like a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen."

"Well, he had been leering at me and making sexual comments about my appearance for years..."

"You misunderstand me. I'm not talking about a sexual harassment case _against_ Dr. House, Dr. Cuddy, but one from him against you. According to the Princeton University policy manual, '…no supervisor may influence, directly or indirectly, salary, promotion, performance appraisals, _work assignments or other working conditions _for an employee with whom such a relationship exists.' This kind of influence constitutes sexual harassment, according to the rules of your employer. It's pretty clear that you influenced Dr. House's work assignment and working conditions because of your relationship. Looked at a certain way, it could be said that you took sexual advantage of a vulnerable employee, and then once you were in a relationship with him, you manipulated his behavior at work, using your sexual relationship as a tool, expecting him to change the way he did his job to suit your ideal of a mate."

Cuddy was horrified. "Me!? What about him? He'd been making sexual comments about me for years."

"He wasn't your supervisor, Dr. Cuddy, and it sounds to us, based on your own answers here, as well as those of other witnesses, that you didn't make much of an attempt to curtail those 'sexual comments', but rather enjoyed them, and had been trying to encourage a relationship between the two of you long before you two actually got together."

"_He _announced to an entire lobby full of people that he had slept with me!"

Pause. More conferring among panel members.

"That was because Dr. House was suffering from a delusion, wasn't it? In addition to the hallucinations he had been experiencing for a few days prior. Is that correct?"

"Well, yes..."

"We're not talking about that… we're talking about you."

No response.

"When you began your sexual relationship with him, you were of course, aware that he had spent several months as an inpatient at Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital being treating for his severe depression."

Startled out of her anger, Cuddy said, "Depression? No, I had not realized that's what he was there for."

The questioner looked surprised. "Are you seriously telling me that, as his supervisor and, at that point, one of his doctors of record, you had no idea what his diagnosis was or why he was being treated for such an extensive period of time?"

"I assumed that it was for his drug addiction." _Maybe that wasn't strictly true. She'd sat there and let Lucas harangue House at that breakfast about mental illness, not particularly for addiction… even thought she believed House's addiction had caused the delusion._

"In fact, medically - and I'm surprised that, as a medical doctor, you didn't know this - Vicodin has never been known to causes delusions. Hallucinations, yes; delusions, no. Severe depression, on the other hand, can be a cause of both hallucinations and delusions, as can brain injuries."

Overwhelmed, Cuddy shook her head, trying to shake off the rollercoaster of feelings that were drowning her.

"Let's not belabor the point. What happened next?"

After using her yoga techniques to breathe in and out, trying to calm herself down, she finally answered. "Dr. Wilson asked me to consider making up with House. He said I wasn't being fair."

"Was he right?"

"I think I told him that it wasn't about what House needed. It was about me being able to know for certain that the man I was involved with would be there for me when I needed him." _Unimpaired._ "All I knew was that I was done." _Again._

"Getting back to our earlier point, before the two of you got together, had you been aware that he might not be that kind of man?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes, remember her conversation with Wilson at the medical conference. "Yes. I knew it."

"But you chose to get involved with him anyway."

"Yes."

"And when he turned out not to be the person you'd hoped he would be, you ended the relationship."

"Yes."

"Let me try to summarize what happened next. While you were trying to deal with your own emotional upheaval following your cancer scare and the relationship breakup, you were not able to provide for Dr. House's mental and physical wellbeing in the workplace as he went through this rough patch. Would that sum it up?"

"I think you're being unfair to my viewpoint, but basically, yes."

"Tell us about the night Dr. House performed surgery on himself."

Grateful for any change of topic, she gave a tight smile and answered less angrily. "He called me at home very late one night. I hadn't really talked to him since our breakup, except a few times at work. He told me what had happened - about the tumors - and asked me to come over and help him. I packed up my daughter, not quite realizing just how bad the situation was, and went to his place. I let myself in. I found him covered in blood in his bathtub."

"That sounds pretty horrific."

"It was… awful."

"Did he say why he had called you instead of one of his other friends?"

_Friends? Plural? She realized they'd mentioned friends earlier, but she'd been too annoyed to notice it at the time. _"Yes. He said I was the last on his list, that no one else was available."

"Did he tell you why he hadn't called 911 instead?"

"Yes. He wanted someone he knew… and trusted… to be with him, to make sure everything was handled right."

"He told you he still trusted you… even after you were the one who suggested the surgery that left him in constant pain. Even after the way you had treated him during and after your relationship?"

"Yes." _Even after the way you had treated him… _Their words were running around in her head. "In fact, at the hospital, he begged me to stay and make sure Dr. Hourani didn't amputate his leg."

"Despite the fact that the day the two of you had gotten together he had told his patient that he wished he'd let you amputate at the time of his original injury?"

"I don't know why he said it… or why he was so attached to that damned leg."

"How did your daughter handle this?"

"I didn't let her see him until I had cleaned him up somewhat and gotten him into the backseat of my car. He… well, he actually calmed her down when she got upset about the blood on his leg. Something about a stupid pirate cartoon he had introduced her to."

"So even in his own weakened condition, he was able to comfort a scared little girl?"

"Yes, I guess so." He really had been very good with Rachel that night… and he was in so much pain and misery, it was kind of amazing that he could reassure her.

"His leg was saved, I take it."

"Yes, although he needed two more surgeries - one to get the remaining tumors in his leg, and another when he developed an infection."

"How long did he stay in the hospital?"

"Only a couple of days. He signed himself out against medical advice."

"From what we have determined from his records, the trial for the medication that was supposed to regrow muscle ended abruptly because the lab rats all died suddenly, from tumors throughout their bodies. Before he checked himself out, did anyone on Dr. House's healthcare team think to scan the rest of him for additional tumors?"

_Oh, good God_, thought Cuddy, her stomach churning. _How incompetent are we?_ _How negligent have we all been with his medical care over the years?_ Looking down at the desk in front of her, feeling a terrible pressure over her heart, she admitted quietly, "No… no we didn't scan him. No one did anything except perform the surgeries and provide basic post-op care until he checked himself out."

As she had yesterday, Cuddy was again forced to look at herself through the panel's eyes, and what she saw there gave her a horrible sinking feeling. For years, she'd accused House of unethical behavior, confronting him about what she said were his personality flaws... but she had never really looked at her own actions and character in the same way. _Self-absorbed narcissist,_ he'd called her. Apparently, once again, House had been right.

If she'd been honest with herself at the beginning, or at least recognized that this might not have been the best time to start a relationship with House (because he was so vulnerable)… or if she had remembered her ethical obligations and not gotten involved with an employee at all… none of it would have happened.

She should have known herself well enough to realize she would try to get him to change, and that no good could come of that. Instead, she led him on for months, until he was so wrapped up in her that he abandoned his personal ethics and his patients to desperately hang onto the relationship, which was clearly already dying. And then, when he was at another low point, she dumped him, and didn't even have common decency to look after his needs professionally.

"Could you tell us about how the two of you interacted following his self-surgery?"

By this time, Cuddy felt deflated.

"I… I f-felt he needed to talk about his feelings. I may have… I _did_ confront him about it… several times."

"And what did Dr. House say to that?"

_What had he said? "I want things to go back to the way they were before we started dating — no more bad feelings, no more issues, just work."_

Not looking up at the panel, she repeated what he'd said to her. "He… he said he wanted things to go back to the way they were before we started dating. He wanted no more bad feelings, no more issues, just work."

"And he said this to you when?"

"Shortly before… before…"

"Do you have any idea what changed in him from that moment when he took what appears to have been the very reasonable request for things to return to pre-relationship status?"

_What had changed? How could he go from that… to _that… in such a short period of time? _"__I'm just asking you to talk about it," she'd said. "You owe me. Forget about saving your life. You exposed my daughter to that obnoxious pirate cartoon." She'd been attempting to add in some levity to the conversation, but she was also determined to get him talking about his feelings… something it was clear he __really__ didn't want to do._

"I guess I kept pushing him to talk to me about his feelings."

"It had been several weeks since the breakup, hadn't it? Why now?"

"I'm not sure. Something about how self-destructive he'd been in trying that crazy rat trial stuff and then operating on himself to try to remove the tumors, I guess." _Crazy? Again, dammit. _

"So after seeing him fall apart for weeks, and now, when he seemed to have recovered somewhat, you suddenly felt it was your place to push him on how you thought he should respond to the breakup?"

"Yes. I guess so. I think I'd gotten removed enough from the situation that my own feelings weren't so involved."

"As a result, you felt it was important somehow to tell him how he should be dealing with the situation?"

"Yes."

"And this was after he'd made it clear that he just wanted things to go back to some semblance of normal?"

"Yes."

"How did he react to your suggestions that he deal with his feelings?"

_Sitting across from him at lunch, challenging him about his unresolved issues, his choices, she'd seen him try to control those very feelings she was trying to get him to bring out into the open. Full of sarcasm, he'd responded by going through the litany of all the reasons she might attribute his self-surgery to: "I did it to fix my life. No, wait. No, I did it because I'm a deeply unhappy person. No… no… I did it to get sympathy from you. I did it to piss you off. I did it because I'm not over you… or I was over you, and I was moving on. I did it because I wanted to know what it's like not to be in pain. I did it because I want to feel more pain. Whatever the reason, it was a bad reason and a bad idea. That's all that matters."_

Trying to swallow the lump that had lodged itself in her throat, Cuddy answered slowly, "At lunch, I tried to get him to talk about his feelings, about why he'd taken that untested med and then carved himself open in the bathtub. He… he listed off all the reasons why he might have done it… all that emotional stuff I was trying to get him to deal with… and then ended by telling me he knew it had been a bad idea."

"He acknowledged that he'd done it for bad reasons?"

"Yes."

"In essence, then, it sounds as if he was fairly self-aware, and was dealing with the situation."

"I suppose so."

"Again, Dr. Cuddy, you don't sound convinced. What happened next?"

"I followed him out of the cafeteria and into the hall. I wanted him to do more than parrot back to me what he thought I wanted to hear."

"Did he do more?"

"Yes." _He'd loomed over her, and finally… finally… told her he was hurt by her actions, and when she'd apologized, he'd exonerated her from blame, telling her it wasn't her fault. But was it her fault? Sure, some of it was House's fault, just for being who he was, and for his crazy - _dammit_ - self-destructive streak. But she shared the blame, whether he was willing to say it to her or not. Once again, she was the one who controlled the conversation, controlled the direction that things had gone, the one who forced him to tell her his feelings._ "He finally told me how he felt… that he felt hurt."

"I almost hate to ask this question, Dr. Cuddy, but what made you feel as if it was your place to play psychologist?"

The question threw her. "I don't understand," she said, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"It seems pretty clear that Dr. House probably needed some form of counseling after your breakup, although he didn't receive it, for whatever reasons. Then, weeks later, when he seemed to be coming to some sort of inner peace about the breakup, you… well… you stirred things up. Why was it so important for you to do that?"

_Why had it been so important to her to get him to talk all these weeks later? _"I'm really not sure. I just felt that he needed to talk about it… to get angry with me." _Oh, hell_, she thought. She really had been goading him into getting angry. Not that she could possibly have anticipated that he would do anything quite so insane… _choose another word, Lisa_, said her little voice… quite so _outrageous_ or dangerous.

"And this conversation took place shortly before the incident with your home?"

"Yes." _The incident with your home. It sounded so benign said that way, when it was actually terrifying to see his car come barreling into her dining room._

"We don't need to go into the specifics of what happened that night, because we have the police reports, plus Dr. Wilson's testimony. We know you filed charges against him, and left your job shortly thereafter. Did you have any contact with Dr. House after that?"

"No. None."

"But after he turned himself in, refusing legal advice and agreeing to an unusually lengthy prison sentence, he did allow his assets to be seized to pay for the damage to your home, did he not?"

"Well, yes." _Not that she ever wanted to step foot in the place again._

"In summary, we are very concerned about the apparent misuse of your authority over Dr. House on numerous occasions, from the time of his original leg surgery right through to his incarceration."

"I don't see it that way," she said. But the truth was that now she was being forced to look at her actions, she did see it like that, at least in part. After being grilled by this panel for two days, she had to admit that there were moments in her past when she had not behaved as well as she might, either personally or professionally, and she had a horrible feeling the consequences of her actions might catch up to her.

"I think that covers everything, Dr. Cuddy. Thank you for your time. We will now begin deliberations."

Feeling as if she'd run a marathon, shoulders sagging, an exhausted Lisa Cuddy got up and left the room, eager to get home to Rachel and leave all this behind her.


	39. Ten Days Later

**Ten Days Later, 9 a.m. - Monday**

On this, the last day of the inquiry, the panelists sat once again in their assigned seats, conferring quietly. Across from them, several people were seated on hard chairs identical to the one that had previously held just one witness. Present in the room were James Wilson, Darryl Nolan, Eric Foreman, Robert Chase, Remy Hadley, Jessica Adams, Chi Park, Chris Taub… and Gregory House, who sat with his head down, staring blankly at the floor as he bounced his cane up and down on its rubber tip. He wore a tweed driving cap with the brim pulled forward, shading his eyes.

The last to enter the room was Lisa Cuddy. When she saw House, her eyes widened slightly and her body stiffened. Clenching her jaw, she grabbed the remaining chair and dragged it as far away from him as she could, setting it down firmly on the floor before sitting down. The others formed a group, as if they were trying to present a united front.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said the panel chair, tapping the base of his pen against the long table to get their attention. "Thank you for attending this final session. We appreciate the testimony from all of the witnesses who have spoken before us, and are particularly pleased to have heard from several people who contacted us unsolicited. Some of them have provided unique and valuable perspectives. First, let me tell you we are unanimous in our findings and our determination."

The panel chair removed a pair of tortoiseshell glasses from a case in his breast pocket, perching them upon his nose. He rustled a sheaf of papers in front of him and began to read from his notes.

"After careful review of all the testimony and the medical and psychiatric evidence, we have come to a series of decisions. Before we announce these decisions, we enter into the record the results of a physical exam and a series of CT and MRI tests Dr. House underwent last week at our request, as well as affidavits from some of Dr. House's more famous patients, including the President of the United States, who has reported that Dr. House saved his life.

"We also submit a statement we received earlier this week from Dr. Robert Chase, who has admitted clogging the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital plumbing with the shredded tickets previously blamed on Dr. House, the act that led to the revocation of Dr. House's parole."

At this, a small, self-satisfied smile graced Chase's face. _There_, he thought. _After all this time, we're even now, House. You saved my career after my mistake, and now I've done my damndest to save yours._ He glanced surreptitiously toward House, and their eyes met for just a moment. House bowed his head almost imperceptibly in thanks before turning his gaze back toward the floor.

"We are sorry to report that the CT and MRI results show repeated and cumulative brain injuries in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that affects judgment, impulse control, management of aggression, emotional regulation, self-regulation, planning, reasoning and social skills. These brain injuries include a number of falls and accidents, and were probably triggered by the severe skull fracture he experienced, and the lack of effective treatment for that injury.

"In addition, the deep brain stimulation and the seizure it caused seem to have caused some minor damage to the hippocampus, where memory is stored and which also affects emotional control. The scans show some slight damage to the hypothalamus, although we are not sure why that area was affected. Fortunately, with medication, the symptoms caused by those injuries - which seem to have affected only his emotions and impulse control - not his intellect - should be manageable."

The man cleared his throat, took a sip of water and went on. "We also regret to say the scans of his brain show a couple of small tumors in the prefrontal cortex, which, fortunately, appear to be operable. A biopsy has shown them to be benign, but the placement of them suggests they could affect emotional stability, judgment and impulse control as well. As far as we can tell, these tumors appear to have resulted from the side effects associated with the untested medication Dr. House used in a desperate attempt to resolve his long-term pain issues."

House's mouth dropped open slightly in surprise as others in his group sent him sidelong glances to see how he was responding to this startling news.

When the panel chairman said, _"…the CT and MRI results show repeated and cumulative brain injuries in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that affects judgment, impulse control, management of aggression, emotional regulation, self-regulation, planning, reasoning and social skills," _Cuddy audibly gasped, her thoughts turning inward, not really hearing what was going on around her.

Quite simply, she was shocked. No one, not herself, not Wilson, not even House's team, had done what this panel had done, which was to track down an underlying physical cause for the fairly substantial changes in House's behavior over the couple of years beginning right before his commitment at Mayfield.

Her mind raced, going back over her interactions with House during that time. How could she not have noticed how much he had changed, how much more out of control he'd seemed? How could she have missed it? House's anguished outburst when she pushed him to express his feelings, his sudden turnaround from pleading with her to go back to their previous way of dealing with each other… and then, within hours, driving his car into her home… it all suddenly made more sense. His brain was damaged. He hadn't been completely in control of his emotions. And no one, herself included, had even considered the possibility that there might be a physical cause.

She couldn't seem to get her head around the idea that House had been suffering from physical issues that had affected how he had behaved. For two years now, she had spent every moment of every day resentful of how his actions had affected her, constantly fuming, completely convinced that he was a violent domestic abuser, and perhaps always had been one. Why hadn't anyone noticed how much he had changed? Not only had they not noticed just how hard he had tried to create a better life for himself following Mayfield, but they also hadn't seen it as he again began to disintegrate during his relationship with Cuddy. Why hadn't someone suspected something was wrong and tried to find the answer? _Why?_

Her testimony before the panel had shaken her self-confidence. She had been forced to face - and admit - that her own behavior had been less than stellar. Cuddy had always perceived herself, not just as a great administrator, but as a good person. Now she wasn't so sure. For the past ten days, as the panel deliberated, she had found herself unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to stop thinking about the issues brought up during her testimony. Every time she remembered some of the things she'd said to House, some of the things she'd done to him, it had made her feel horrible.

She realized that, practically from the beginning, when House's leg injury first happened, she had behaved herself badly, always setting a higher standard for House's behavior than for her own. Now she had no choice but to examine her own numerous ethical lapses, but also how her professional and personal conduct over the years had affected the people around her, and in particular, House.

For the first time in her life, Cuddy had reflected on her own behavior, feeling dirty, ashamed, and very uneasy… feelings she'd never had before. Now, to find out about the brain injuries and tumors, and how they had affected House, her whole perception of the universe was shaken. It was almost like waking up one morning to find out that she wasn't actually Lisa Cuddy, administrator extraordinaire, but instead was some other woman, a woman who couldn't tell right from wrong, who couldn't seem to use her brain instead of her emotions, and who did rather despicable things to someone she claimed was a friend, a lover and a disabled employee. She felt hollow inside, as if someone had scooped out the essence of the person she thought she was.

Slowly, Cuddy resurfaced, aware again of her surroundings, but feeling vacant, the revelations making her feel like she had imploded. While she was still deep in her own thoughts, the panel chairman had continued.

"Going into this inquiry, we were well aware of Dr. House's reputation, both professionally and personally. We knew he was detested by many of his fellow doctors at Princeton-Plainsboro, and that he tended to alienate colleagues, superiors and patients alike. It is apparent from reviewing his history that Dr. House has had an enormous capacity for self-destructive behavior, and has brought some of his problems on himself."

At this, House shrugged, as if to say, "So what else is new?"

"Dr. House's physical dependence on Vicodin has certainly not helped the situation. Given his pain levels and ongoing concerns with his pain management - or lack thereof - it is understandable how that dependence escalated into pseudo-addiction. Pseudo-addiction, as you know, is a condition with symptoms similar to those of addiction, but which results specifically from untreated or undertreated chronic pain. Despite the beliefs of some who have known him - and we cannot state this strongly enough - we _do not_ believe Dr. House has been addicted to Vicodin, but instead has been physically dependent on the medication, which eventually led to pseudo-addiction because his pain was not treated as well as it should have been."

Wilson glanced over at House in time to see a fleeting look of astonishment pass across his friend's face, quickly replaced by his usual frown.

The panel chair continued: "As a result of our findings, we do not think that all of Dr. House's behavior can be blamed exclusively on his personality. It's apparent that brain injuries and tumors have undoubtedly affected his actions. In addition, we have also determined that there has been considerable negligence, if not outright malpractice, by some of the people entrusted with Dr. House's medical care.

"To make what we're saying crystal clear, we believe there were major extenuating circumstances affecting some of his decisions and behavior. In particular, it appears that his mental breakdown was precipitated, at least in part, by repeated head injuries and, specifically, by the skull fracture and deep brain stimulation. His delusion about Dr. Cuddy and the hallucinations that preceded it _could not _have been caused by his Vicodin use, as has been assumed up until now, but rather by those brain injuries and/or long-standing depression, either of which could have created, among other problems, his confabulated memory.

"In addition, it is our considered opinion that the violent act leading to his incarceration was brought on by those same untreated injuries, aggravated by additional injuries, the tumors and the three subsequent surgeries. He was still recuperating from those surgeries, and should no doubt have been remained hospitalized, when the violent incident took place. The medical evidence strongly suggests that his self-surgery, insistence on checking himself out AMA following three back-to-back surgeries, as well as the reckless violent act itself, were caused by the brain injuries and tumors affecting his judgment and impulse control."

At this pronouncement, Wilson's eyes opened wide. _I really am an idiot_, he thought. _Why has it always been so easy for me to blame House's troubles on his personality and not even try to find a medical cause? Especially when I apparently created one of the biggest of those medical problems myself. What kind of doctor do I think I am, anyway? And what kind of friend?_

As Wilson drifted into remorse, the panel chair continued: "As should be obvious by now, we did our homework before coming in here, and we know of Dr. House's history of recklessness, self-destructive behavior and occasional borderline - and sometimes not so borderline - illegal activities. That said, we also believe that some of the things that have taken place could have been prevented.

"Dr. House, there is no question that you have a talent for angering the people around you, whether colleagues, superiors or patients, and you also have a knack for getting in your own way. Your antisocial tendencies are well documented. However, those issues are not under review here. What we are examining, instead, are any mitigating circumstances that might have contributed to the course of events.

"The man we have unearthed through this process is someone who hid his most sensitive feelings far away from anyone who might use them to hurt him... and that includes his best friend at times, as well as Dr. Cuddy. For some reason, Dr. House, you were willing to show that gentler side of yourself to some patients and, on rare occasions, to others. What most people saw, however, was a rude, push-the-limits kind of a guy who seemed to have a shaky grasp of ethics or legal issues, who seemed determined to push people until they couldn't stand him anymore, and who did a great deal of harm to those around him and, perhaps just as damaging, to himself.

"Dr. House, although you have behaved unethically and even illegally at times, we believe that, over time, you have done more good than bad. You have been forthcoming with us about these failures and have expressed willingness to pay the legal price for your actions.

"It has become apparent to us that you have, for many years, served the medical community well, even though, as we have already noted, you have been more than a bit cantankerous, unorthodox and eccentric in your dealings with coworkers and patients. Professionally, it's obvious that you value the truth above everything else, but it's equally obvious that you aren't always aware of it in your personal life. But it is equally clear that you yourself have been severely ill-served, not only by people whom you considered to be friends, but also by the medical and legal establishments, which should have made greater efforts to uncover these underlying medical causes and treat them before some of the unfortunate circumstances occurred."

The panel chair glanced up over his glasses and gazed at the assembled group. After glancing first at Wilson, who squirmed under the scrutiny, and then on Cuddy, who sat up straighter in her chair, setting her jaw, he finally settled on House.

"Dr. House, based on these findings, we hereby reinstate your medical license immediately, and recommend that all previous legal charges be stricken from your record."

Before anyone else had a chance to react, Cuddy sputtered. "But he destroyed my house!" she said, her voice coming out a little more loudly than she intended. "He should pay for that!"

The panel chair stared her down, until she grew quiet. "Dr. Cuddy, please! Restrain yourself. You know perfectly well that Dr. House has more than paid for what happened to your home. He willingly submitted to a longer sentence than was required by law, and many of his assets were seized, with no argument from him, to cover the damages to your property. He has accepted complete responsibility for his actions, even though some of them, it is now clear, were beyond his control.

"He lost his career, his reputation, his income, and his freedom for more than a year, with charges tacked on because of his insistence upon saving the life of a fellow inmate… which, by the way, has generated a New Jersey State Justice Department investigation.

"In addition, if this panel had not convened, he would have faced an even longer sentence for faking his own death to avoid parole revocation - which never would have been necessary if Dr. House hadn't saved that man's life, causing his sentence to be extended. Of course, that revocation is now moot because of Dr. Chase's admission."

"But… but…" said Cuddy, ineffectually. Why, after all these revelations, she still felt the need to respond so strongly, she didn't know. Habit, maybe?

"Dr. House actually behaved admirably under the circumstances. Yes, he has, in many ways been his own worst enemy, but he has also been a remarkably loyal friend to Dr. Wilson, acting as he did to share what they both believed to be Dr. Wilson's final few months, and then in returning to face this inquiry, even though he knew there would be severe legal consequences.

"As a panel, we have strongly recommended to the New Jersey State Corrections Department that no further incarceration be required, and, as we already noted, that his previous criminal record be expunged. In another unanimous decision, based on our medical findings, they have agreed with our assessment. We express our apologies to Dr. House. You are free, sir."

Cuddy's jaw snapped shut in shock. For his part, House again nodded his thanks, this time to the panel, before returning his gaze to the floor. He seemed to find a speck of dust there endlessly fascinating.

The panel chairman stared long and hard at Cuddy to see if another outburst was forthcoming. When it wasn't, he continued. "We know, Dr. Wilson, that it can't have been easy being friends with Greg House at times, and we admire you for staying friends with him for all these years. In many ways, you have been a good friend to him. Just because we asked you some difficult questions doesn't mean we are unaware of Dr. House's negative characteristics and behavior.

"However, Dr. Wilson, we find that some of your own behavior as described in these hearings has been fairly reprehensible, and we recommend that you be censured for the following actions and inactions:

For demeaning and repeatedly ignoring the pain issues of your patient;

For withholding pain medication or your medical services from that patient on more than one occasion;

For abandoning the same patient when he was suicidal and had overdosed on painkillers and alcohol, and for not seeking proper medical attention in that situation;

And primarily, for asking said patient, while already severely injured, to undergo a life-threatening procedure for no medical reason whatsoever, but simply to serve your own personal agenda.

"Dr. Wilson, we recommend that your medical license be suspended for a period of not less than two months and not more than six. You need to know that Dr. House has argued on your behalf, or otherwise that suspension would be considerably longer and our determination much harsher."

Wilson slumped forward in his chair. Somehow, he knew this was coming, but he felt unprepared for it. And then, to find out House had gone to bat for him, when he knew he hardly deserved it. He felt the air leave his lungs.

As the reality of his suspension sunk in, Wilson made up his mind. If House could face the virtual certainty of a long jail term just to spend a few precious months with him, then the very least he could do was accept this suspension with some semblance of grace. He sat up straighter in his chair, lifting his chin slightly as he responded to the panel's decision.

Clearing his throat, he addressed his inquisitors. "Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and ladies and gentlemen of the panel. It's mortifying to admit that what you have said is true, that I have sometimes behaved shamefully, not just toward a patient, but to my best friend, someone who has repeatedly demonstrated through his actions how much I matter to him. I… I know I warrant much worse than this suspension, and I appreciate the panel's charity, as well as Dr. House's intervention on my behalf.

"This inquiry has been a wakeup call for me, both personally and professionally, not to make assumptions about my patients - or my friends. And I recognize that I will need to be diligent to make sure I don't ever again commit the sin of arrogance." He managed a small, tight smile, before looking away.

To his left, Wilson felt something bump him. Looking over, he saw House's right hand reaching out in Wilson's direction. As House - the man who had such problems with physical contact - clasped Wilson's forearm, squeezing lightly, the two exchanged glances, and Wilson could have sworn he saw empathy on House's face. _It'll be all right_, House seemed to be saying._ It'll be all right._

Wilson felt a prickling sensation behind his eyes. _Such an idiot_, he thought. _How could I have been so wrong all these years? Is anything he ever did to me deserving of how I've treated him? The terrible, condescending things I've said to this man… and look what he's done for me, time and again. _

For her part, unfortunately, Cuddy was still mired in the sense of emptiness that had overcome her earlier. She felt stunned, drained. Over the couple of years since House had driven that car into her Princeton home, her resentment of House had grown. Bitterness had eaten away at her, consuming her soul as surely as the cancer she'd thought she had would have consumed her body. Twelve days earlier, when she first entered this room, she had been pissed that she'd had to come here, extremely pissed at having to testify, and, if she was honest with herself, part of her was still pissed off that House was here and had just been exonerated.

The chairman turned his attention to her. Looking up, Cuddy held her breath. The chickens were about to come home to roost, and she knew it. "Dr. Cuddy, we don't doubt that you were convinced that you were doing the right thing at the time, but the truth is that you have made some extremely bad choices, both as Dr. House's supervisor and as part of his healthcare team. We can't avoid the conclusion that you have done him much more harm than good."

"Based on testimony from a variety of witnesses, and from our interviews with you, it is our expert estimation that, from the time you authorized the initial surgery on Dr. House's leg, up through the moment when you filed charges against him after he drove into your home, you have committed numerous unethical acts.

"Among other things, you exploited his international reputation, underpaid him, manipulated him, forced him twice into undergoing abrupt, unnecessary and painful withdrawal from needed pain medication, intentionally caused him physical harm on more than one occasion, and overruled his actual medical treatment.

"As his supervisor, you abused and misused your authority over Dr. House, violated the Americans With Disabilities Act, violated HIPAA by disclosing Dr. House's psychiatric history, neglected the medical and psychological needs of a patient and employee, and fostered a toxic work environment for him.

"Although your behavior may not have met all of the standards for sexual harassment in the state of New Jersey, it nevertheless violated the rules for sexual relationships between employer and employee as set down in the Princeton University guidelines, and as such, it was ill-advised of you to get involved with Dr. House in the first place, to continue to attempt to supervise him once you became a couple, and extremely unethical to withhold sex to get him to do what you wanted him to do at work."

Realizing she hadn't breathed throughout this assessment, Cuddy attempted to draw in a breath, but the best she could get was a shallow inhale of air. Almost as if hypnotized, she found her eyes riveted to those of the chairman, her emotions roiling beneath the surface.

"We must say that it seems to us as if your behavior at best verged on sexual harassment, by virtue of the fact that you began a sexual relationship not only with an employee, but with an employee who was at that moment particularly vulnerable. You used your sexual relationship with Dr. House to manipulate the way he did his job, which can certainly be viewed as a form of sexual harassment.

"In addition, in the instance of the debridement surgery, you functioned without giving him informed consent about what you intended to do. Your actions contributed to the constant and excruciating pain he will live with for the rest of his life. Dr. House has paid dearly for knowing you, Dr. Cuddy."

Once her head cleared, Cuddy was appalled. Grasping for dear life to the image of herself that was shattering around her, she thought, _How dare they! _She was the consummate professional. As she opened her mouth to respond, the panel chair went on, not giving her a chance to speak.

"Given the circumstances, we have made the following decisions. We recommend that your medical license be permanently revoked, and we have faxed a letter outlining our concerns about past unethical conduct to the board of directors at the Philadelphia Mercy Hospital. We have reported your violation of HIPAA to our supervisors at the AMA Medical Review Board. According to a certified letter we received from them on Friday, you will be fined the maximum under the law, $1.5 million in damages, to be payable directly to Dr. House to recompense him for years of underpayment and abuse, and there will probably be legal consequences as well.

"But I'll lose my job!" she sputtered. "You'll destroy me!" Suddenly devastated, she couldn't figure out how, in one instant, her whole life could change in such a dramatic way.

"Frankly," said the panel chair, with a distinct lack of sympathy, "it's nothing less than you deserve, under the circumstances. Over a period of years, you have essentially destroyed Dr. House's life, caused him irreparable physical and emotional pain, helped to ruin his reputation, and left him in tatters.

"For the damage he did to your home, you have expected Dr. House to be held accountable, which he has been, to a greater degree than was legally necessary. It's not unreasonable to expect that you now be held accountable for the damage you have done to him. I would hope that you would behave as responsibly as Dr. House did."

Cuddy was horrified. In a million years, she never expected things to turn out like this. After all, House was the bad boy; she was the good girl.

The panel chair continued. "In addition, we have contacted the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, proposing that Dr. House be given visiting privileges to see your adopted daughter, Rachel, who clearly misses him, even after all this time. Based on our recommendation, they have reviewed the situation and agreed with our findings regarding regular visitation."

Shocked that, in addition to everything else, she might be forced to interact with House on a regular basis, she couldn't even find words for a moment. When she finally could speak, she muttered, "You can't do that!"

"Actually, we can and we did," said the chairman. "The Department's review board agreed with us that Dr. House had become a father figure to Rachel, and as such, should be allowed visitation rights."

Cuddy was literally speechless.

"Just as he did regarding Dr. Wilson," the chair went on, "Dr. House spoke to us on your behalf, asking that we be lenient, but it is the determination of this panel that his wishes in this matter be overridden. For many years now, you have behaved abominably toward this man, not just professionally, but personally. You have been unethical, manipulative and cruel. Honestly, you'll be lucky to stay out of jail yourself. Our judgment stands."

As Cuddy paled in reaction, the panel chair turned his head to face House, who barely glanced his way. His eyes were still on the floor. "Dr. House, it has been said of you that all you ever cared about was the puzzle - that you never cared about your patients or anyone else. Based on our interviews and the statements we received from your former patients, we know this to be untrue. You deserve better friends than you have had - in fact, if you take the time to look around, I think you will find you have many more good friends than you think you do.

"We have one last recommendation. If you decide to return to medicine, we strongly suggest you do so at another place of employment - one less toxic to you than Princeton-Plainsboro has been, and one where you don't have to carry all of this ugly baggage. Personally, we'd love to see you publish a textbook about diagnostics. With your skills, the world is open to you. You should be able to write your own ticket, and we recommend that you start by contacting some of your friends and former patients around the world. Try not to get in your own way.

"In fact, on a personal note, several of us here on the panel are willing to supply professional referrals to help you reestablish your medical career. We will also be delighted to write you letters of recommendation if you so desire.

"Start anew, Dr. House. We wish you well. This inquiry is adjourned."

The panel chair stood, followed by his colleagues, and walked around the long table to where Greg House still sat, seemingly in shock over the way his life had suddenly turned around. Suddenly, House was surrounded by some of those very friends - old and new - he never realized he had.

Across the room, Cuddy, who was just as stunned by the turn of events as House was, tried to catch her breath. _How could things have gone so very wrong, _she wondered. Standing, her hands shaking, she clutched her handbag and tried to keep her balance. Then, making up her mind, she walked slowly toward the group surrounding House.

As the others realized she was approaching, they silently parted, leaving a pathway to where he was seated.

"H-House?" she whispered, finding it hard to get even that one word out.

House lifted his head toward her, plainly confused and a bit apprehensive. As she looked down at him, Cuddy swallowed, and then mouthed the words she'd seldom voiced… and had never really meant before. "I'm so sorry, House," she said, overcome by a flood of feeling. "I really am."

Not saying a word in response, House nodded his acceptance of her apology, but Cuddy could see hurt and sadness in his eyes… because now, finally, she was really… _really_… seeing him. Not the image she had of him, not the imperfect boyfriend or the recalcitrant employee, but the man. Shaking her head regretfully, she turned and silently left the room, headed out to piece together the shambles she'd made of her life.

Five minutes later, the remaining group, still gathered around Greg House - now a free man with an unlimited future - led him out the door of the dark, muggy, stuffy room and into the brightly lit hall, where they convinced him to join them for a celebratory meal. The last one out the door was Wilson, who took a last look around, allowed himself a hint of a smile, and turned off the light.

THE END


End file.
